PENCIL ME IN!

My grandmother, “Grandma Mac”, had a set of coloured pencils I remember.  I was about six years old, or thereabout, young enough that I could not use them without her watching me.  Circa 1960’s.  She used them to draw and sketch.  I was just as fascinated with the box they came in, the lid slid away from the pencils, and folded back, acting like a stand, so you could easily draw out a pencil from the hard cardboard case. 

I purchased my own coloured pencil set as a young adult – I found some Berols on sale. Through the years I’ve purchased many more, and now there are many other brands in my pencil box! Some of the colours are duplicates. Still, just looking at them delights me.  I have stored them in the same cedar box with a hinged lid for over 40 years now. Its the small cedar box that Lane Cedar Chest company used to give to high school graduates.  My good friend Catherine gave me hers.  I still colour and draw with my coloured pencils.  In fact, I have loved colouring before it was considered O.K. or even “cool” for an adult to colour.  Sadly, my ability to artistically sketch has always been sketchy at best, so I am not skilled at drawing.

Knowing I was not going to be an artist never stopped me from drawing and sketching though.  I still have no qualms about putting pencil to paper and happily draw and colour for myself.  When my daughters were young, I drew black and white “object d’art” (using the term lightly) or, more like rather funny vignettes, scenes, animal, plants or anything else so we could color them.  I thought commercial coloring books with the latest cartoon or movie characters dull.

In later years,  my fascination with coloured pencils grew to extend to black graphite.  I love writing pencils —  the history, collecting them, writing with them, holding them and looking at them in a lovely vessel:  crystal vase, vintage cream bottle, pretty bowl, tin, wooden, or any other kind.  And once you buy a pencil, you just can’t stop. And, you just can’t stop with pencils — you must also have pencil sharpeners, erasers, pencil caps, pencil extenders…….. the list goes on, all lovely.

So, if you give a mouse, I mean girl, a pencil, she’ll always want more!  

Thank you Grandma Mac; I envision you sitting at a cloud desk in heaven, sketching and colouring, glancing down ever so often to smile on me.  Your Lorrie-Caroline, still sketching and colouring like mad, writing and smelling the pencils.