Awesome Pencils

Do you like to draw? Lihit Lab’s easy-to-carry, slimline case holds up to 22 pens or pencils. It also has mesh pockets for small accessories like erasers or earbuds and opens up flat for quick access. It measures just 5.5″ × 8.5″ x 0.7″ when closed and comes in orange, indigo, and black. It’s also available in a skinny 14-pen size.

Are skins or DIY paint jobs not good enough for your already pricey Apple Pencil? Well, the madmen at ColorWare would be all too happy to take your money. Their take on the obvious color scheme for the second-generation iPad stylus is, as expected, completely overkill in terms of both quality and price.

Engineers have come up with all kinds of pencil sharpeners. Shane from Stuff Made Here used his engineering expertise to see if he could come up with some new ways to achieve the sharpest point for his pencils. His six ridiculous pencil sharpeners include a 5-axis waterjet, a robot with a spinning X-acto blade, and a tiny chainsaw.

We’re going to need a bigger eraser. This shark-shaped sharpener (sharkener?) is ready to chomp down on your pencils and give them a nice point that’s as sharp as a great white’s tooth. We don’t recommend attempting this with an actual shark even if you have a giant pencil.

This unique piece from Japan’s Traveler’s Company provides a cozy home for a pencil in your pocket. Inside its brass outer sleeve and underneath its cap, you’ll find a stubby wooden pencil. Both the pencil and eraser are replaceable with refill packs, and the unplated brass will develop a delightful patina over time.

We’d probably slice a finger whittling a pencil with an X-Acto knife. Artist Bobby Duke gave that a try before moving on to a rotary tool. He then proceeded to carve a snake wrapped around the pencil’s lead. After a bit of precision painting and some silly sound effects, the tiny artwork was complete.

This zippered carrying case from Japan’s Raymay Fujii provides plenty of space for pens, pencils, and erasers. What makes it special is that it doubles as a desktop pen caddy when opened up. Its internal container tilts diagonally for easy access, and its lid stays open thanks to a magnetic catch.

Uni’s multipurpose writing instrument combines four different ballpoint inks with a mechanical pencil. It has smooth-flowing 0.7 mm red, green, blue, and black pens on board, as well as a 0.5mm pencil lead for those times you need erasable writing. There’s also an eraser hiding under its back cap. Refills here.

This chunky, yet versatile writing instrument combines four pen colors and a pencil. It has retractable 0.7mm black, blue, red, and green ink cartridges, a 0.5mm mechanical pencil, and an eraser hidden under its cap. The pen comes in black and white as well as a variety of other colors. Ink refills sold separately.

Pencils and pasta have more in common than you might think. Process X takes us inside a factory in Japan that makes pencil leads using a similar process to making spaghetti. After mixing raw ingredients, they extrude them into soft noodles, then cut them. Though instead of boiling them, they bake then soak them in hot oil.

Artist Dylan Eakin is a master at drawing photorealistic images using pencils. In this video, he shows off some of his favorite portraits, all of which are indistinguishable from black-and-white photographs to the naked eye. His ability to emulate light and shadow is uncanny. Dylan sells limited-edition prints on his website.

Process X takes us inside Japan’s Kita-Boshi Pencil Co., a factory that cranks out pencils by the thousands each day, shaving shapes out of cedar and cypress wood and filling them with leads before gluing them together, shaping, and sharpening them. Oh, and if you need an eraser, they’ve got you covered.

Award-winning artist Tuesday Bassen is a creative powerhouse, known for her sassy ‘zines, prints, accessories, and ethically made, size-inclusive clothing. She brings twice the attitude to her Two-Faced Pencils set of 10 pencils with graphite lead on one end and red on the other. The foil-stamped barrels come in five designs.

We love the clean and minimal look of this wooden pen and pencil organizer from Design Craft Workshop. It’s handcrafted from walnut and provides three angled shelves to keep your writing instruments from falling off your desk. The subtle curved inner edge is a nice touch. Measures 8.75″ L x 6.75″ W x .75″ H.

We love the minimal form of these writing instruments from Stilform. They feature a smooth, anti-roll design and accept two kinds of magnetic tips – an “eternal” metal tip or a graphite tip. They come in four different materials: anodized aluminum, brass, titanium, and 24k gold. Pre-orders start shipping 11.2022.

Allegory Goods designed this series of handcrafted pens and pencils which incorporate reclaimed woods that date back thousands of years. They come with raw aluminum, gunmetal, burnt bronze, raw brass, or black hardware. The pen takes Parker/Pilot G2 refills, while the pencil accepts standard 0.7mm leads.

Inspired by the shavings created by sharpening pencils, designer Nanako Kume created a series of hanging lampshades with gigantic versions of the curly wood scraps. She started out by making an oversized pencil sharpener, then massive pencils to stick into it. Her process is just as fascinating as the finished pieces.

These special pencils feature a full graphite body. This makes it easier to fill in large areas by angling them. Plus, they have six times more usable pigment and are easier to keep sharpened. Nord woodless pencils come in black as well as a variety pack of colors. They’re not cheap, but they’ll last a very long time.

This elegant writing instrument works with interchangeable magnetic pencil tips. The metal tip can write indefinitely with its soft lines, while its graphite tip is ideal for art and sketching. It comes in aluminum, magnesium, titanium, or brass bodies with a wood veneer accent.

You might do most of your sketching on your phone or laptop these days, but ideas often flow more fluidly on paper. Mechanical pencils a great for their pen-like precision plus erasability. Our pals at Everyday Carry picked the 22 best models to choose from, with our favorite being the hexagonal-bodied Kaweco Special.

Urban Survival Gear makes these limited-edition mechanical pencils. They feature a smooth titanium body with a striped texture on the finger grip. A Schmidt DSM 2006 pencil mechanism holds leads firmly in place and comes in 5mm and 7mm lead sizes. The pencil is available in both 5.36″ long and 4.76″ long mini versions.

Artist DP Truong is always coming up with clever and different ways to draw portraits. This time out, they just used a pencil, but the trick is that it was covered with thorns on every side, making it incredibly difficult to grip and sharpen without causing pain.

Accessory maker Grovemade teamed up with Blackwing to create this elegant and modern desk set for people who still favor sketching with pencils. The stand is made from American black walnut and comes with a dozen of Blackwing’s premium incense cedar graphite pencils and a machined aluminum long-point sharpener.