Colour pencils, points up

Seen from above, a cup of pencils becomes a ring of small hexagons, each with a coloured dot at its centre. The dot is the lead; the pale collar around it is the cedar the sharpener left behind.

Three kinds of point

Some points are long and even, fresh from the sharpener. Some are short and blunt, worn down by shading. A few leads sit almost flush with the wood, so only a coloured disc shows.

The long points draw the finest lines; the blunt ones cover ground. Keeping both in the same cup is a small decision about how the next drawing will be made.

Five leads taken forward

Picked by eye from the leads for the next sheet, not measured.

Colophon