Thursday, September 9, 2010

Carolina Pad Sasquatch Earth Friendly Pencils review

Another Back to School clearance find at a big-box retailer: a tube of 8 Carolina Pad Sasquatch Earth Friendly No. 2 Pencils for a buck.
According to their label, these pencils contain recycled materials and were made in Taiwan. The card stock tube packaging with closing folds on both ends mirrors the pencil barrel colors and looks quite smart.
The first sharpened Sasquatch pencil produced continuous smooth shavings of two different tones since one the slats (the two pieces of wood that are glued together to make the pencil barrel) was noticeably darker than the other.
Apparently the wooden slats used for making these eco-friendly pencils were of rather uneven quality as shown by the "fuzzy" texture of the freshly sharpened Sasquatch pencil on the right. By contrast a pencil made with sturdier higher quality wood, the Tombow Mono 100 pencil on the left came out with a very smooth tapered point using the same electric sharpener.The Sasquatch pencil features a ferrule with a green eraser that performed adequately on this test swatch. It does wear down quickly when erasing wide areas.
Test doodles drawn on a Piccadilly sketchbook. The Sasquatch pencil would be an adequate choice for writing and taking notes, but felt too hard and scratchy for my sketching style. While it made reasonably dark marks, it felt more like an H lead rather than a regular No. 2 or HB pencil. The tip of the Sasquatch lead dragged on the paper when compared to the smooth performance of Japanese premium graphite pencils that glide effortlessly on the same paper. So yes kids not all pencils are the same. While you can certainly sketch with the average pencil usually found at office supply and regular retail stores, a bit of online research can easily and quickly yield quite a few suitable sources of premium pencil alternatives that can make your drawing experience a lot more efficient and pleasant.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

Oh wow that clear cook-book stand was a great idea!