Pencil
When freehand drawing I prefer a wood pencil. When drawing via a ruler or writing (site), I prefer mechanical. I recently purchased some cheep .7mm mechanical pencils. I like the thicker lead for writing because it is easier for me to read later. I like .5mm for drawing lines, but what are you going to do? Anyway. These pencils suck so bad that I'm thinking of donating them. They leaver is on the side and takes a huge effort to click the lead. The lead comes out at the wrong length no matter what. Nearly one quarter of the lead is waisted in these crappy pencils because of the way the mechanism is set too far back. Once the end of the lead is past the mechanism, you have to use another lead. In this pencil, that happens with a quarter of the lead left. Far too wasteful.
Oh, and they only seem to have .5mm lead available in the office. I need some new pencils. I should have known. They are a bunch of designers and engineers. I bet half of them secretly hoard .3mm pencils in their private stock. yes, they make .3mm pencils. I saw them when I was at Ridgway's. I think Texas Art Supply had them too.
It amazes me how touchy some people get over pencils. I like drawing and shading with color pencils. I cannot draw freehand so I don't even own any. Nat and Elly both have sets. I bet if I asked really nicely they would loan me a couple. Nat seems to prefer paint and pens to pencils. Elle likes anything that leaves a mark at the moment. I like drawing with a ruler. I've done some drawing on the computer before. I didn't do a half bad job with CorelDRAW Draw back in the day. Maybe I'll whip something up.
I remember when I worked at Ridgway's. A mother of two walked in on a Saturday with the whole family in tow. She wanted to copy a pretty pencil drawing of a rabbit. It was all grays, but it looked like it would jump off the page at any moment. The normal guy who did the color copies was out for the first time in a long time on a Saturday. We struggled to make a fair copy without smearing the picture. pencil is very delicate on most paper. We brought her back and made some copies, but we did not charge her. They didn't do justice.
Ridgway's was geared to the business world. We had no idea how to preserve artwork. I have no idea if things have changed. I doubt it. They were in it for volume. I haven't set foot in a Ridgway's in ten years. I wonder who still works there.