The Pencil Gets Reinvented

The folks at Chattahoochee Pencil Company have produced an innovative new pencil design, eliminating the need for a sharpener or the problem of a point breaking when you drop a pencil. While the shape takes some getting used to, it encourages you to work more freely as you can’t easily hold it in the same way as a conventional pencil.

A pencil is a pencil right? A long thin, stick-like object with a point at the end? And if it’s feeling trendy it maybe does away with the wood covering? Well, not if it’s a pencil from the Chattahoochee Pencil Company. For once I don’t think it’s an overstatement to describe it as “innovative”.

The shape is more like a large, thin eraser than a conventional pencil. This gives you a choice of sharp edges for drawing thin lines as well as various edges for drawing thicker lines.

Using it, I found it awkward to hold initially, because being so chunky it doesn’t fit snugly between your fingers like a pencil does. But not holding it in the way I hold a pencil when I write encourages me to work more freely, to use my arm to draw, not my wrist.

Getting a very fine line was no problem, even when I’d been drawing a bit; you simply twist it so you’ve a sharp edge or corner touching the paper. I had more trouble getting uniform thick lines, instead having thick line with two darker outer edges. But I think that’s a question of getting to know the possibilities and ‘personality’ of the pencil.

What’s particularly appealing to me is the thought of carrying it around in with my small bag of sketching materials and never being stuck with a useless pencil because I’ve lost my pencil sharpener. And that I will never end up with one of those pencils where the lead is broken throughout because it was dropped one time too many, so and no matter how you sharpen it, the point keeps falling off.