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Finally Tombow Mono 100 Pencils
Well life has been pretty busy lately at work so the little time available has been spent doing something else other than sketching for distraction, you ever heard of that game… World of Warcraft? lol
Seriously, I have been trying to locate the Tombow Mono 100 pencils locally and as you read in the previous post, while I did find them one had to purchase the whole set and only one grade. Well, I encountered someone online that lives in Japan that was able to purchase specific grades, so I got a few for my wife and I… they arrived yesterday.
They look very nice! so far I have only used the H grade on my perpetual quest to sketch my long hair chihuhua dog, if he would only stop moving 😉
Hope everything is going well for you outhere. Remember SketchCrawl #22 is just around the corner so hope to see you at the forums and/or around San Francisco next month.
Thank you for your visit.
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WonderCon 2009 and Kinokuniya San Francisco
This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend WonderCon 2009 and after that I took a quick trip to the Kinokuniya Store in San Francisco, CA.
Saturday was practically a 12hr day for me, from getting up at 7am to getting back home at 7pm, and a lot of fun and discovery in between.
I purchased a ticket in advance, so that saved me from standing in one of two lines inside of the Moscone Center. There was however a very long line outside that wrapped around the block on the way in. Good thing it wasn’t raining at that time.
What was it like? it was great, initially I didn’t see great costumes but as the day progressed I got to see some really cool stuff, like this transformer below.
From SFRichardT @ Flickr.
Another cool thing to watch was our good old friend R2D2 (a couple of droids actually) yeah they attract the attention of everybody old and young.
From veggierebel @ Flickr
The following site contains more info about these droids, www.artoo-detoo.net – now there is another way to be creative.
Mark Hamill
From bonniegrrl @ Flickr
Carrie Fisher
Image no longer available
However I didn’t get a chance to see Sergio Aragonés, when I visited his booth he was not there. I recall I purchased a couple issues of the comic GROO (which I found yesterday along with my old incomplete collection of Thor – from 1984 – amazing that so many years have passed and I still have them)
Image no longer available
As you can see this was one busy day! I also had a chance to attend a few panels / presentations and visit Enrico and his friends (in two separate booths).
Below is a copy of Mia by Enrico and a copy of Rose and Isabel comic by Ted Mathot – read both comics non-stop in one sitting, and now I want to know what happens next.
I have been following Ted’s blog for a while and just recently started to read some of his old posts. There is quite a lot of information there to learn from (thank you for taking the time to share).
Lastly, I managed to take a quick trip to the Kinokuniya store in San Francisco, with the only mission of finding those pencils (I was also out of time, so it had to be a quick visit).
I found both brands I was looking for but for the Tombow Mono 100, you have to purchase the whole box and they didn’t have the grade I wanted, so I just purchased (Mitsubishi Hi-uni) pencils, two for my wife and two for me… to try them out (2B and 5B).
That was one busy Saturday!
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Cretacolor Pencils
I still have not had the chance to find the two brands of pencils mentioned in the previous post. Therefore I figure I should try other brands that the local art supply stores do carry, like the Cretacolor – Fine Art Graphite and the Cretacolor Monolith pencils.
These two have caught my attention a couple of times, so I figured I would just give them a try. The top pencil is a 5B, while the bottom one is an 8B. In this particular case I just purchased one of each. On a way, I can’t wait to try the other brands now that I have these, so I can have a greater understanding of their differences and how well they work for me, as I progress with my own art discovery processes and expressions.
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Art Materials: A Discovery
Greetings,
Ah those moments of discovery are priceless!
While reading a post about pencil geekery in Enrico’s Blog (Founder of SketchCrawl), I became curious about the pencils he mentioned (both the Mitsubishi Hi-Uni and the Kuru Toga).
Initially I set to see if I could find the Kuro Toga (mechanical pencil) locally but no luck, not only that but it seemed the places I looked online were out of stock. Eventually I engaged a person living in Japan and inquired if it was possible to sell/ship me two mechanical pencils, and after a week of waiting I finally received them…
I wanted to share my discovery even before I received them but fearing that my wife may read this blog prior to me giving the pencil to her (the pink one is my gift to her) prevented me from posting 🙂
Up to this point the pencils I have been using for sketching have been those I purchased a while ago, a couple of sets and some single ones. In my room I keep three STAEDTLER (Germany) pencils (HB, 2B and 4B), while in my sketchbag I have two sets, the first is a 12 set of REEVES (England) sketching pencils (From 4H to 6B), and three FABER CASTELL (Germany) GRIP 2001. (HB, B and 2B). Of the pencils I carry in my bag the one I use the most is the FABER CASTELL GRIP 2001 (B).
Wow, if you are into pencils and mechanic pencils, that blog link (Dave’s Mechanical Pencils) Enrico posted is fascinating.. there is so much information, you can spend some serious time reading the various posts.
This Kuro Toga is the first mechanic pencil I have purchased in a very long time, unfortunately I don’t know much about the various other choices out there, (plenty to read in Dave’s blog) but it seems to be an interesting concept. I will have to use it for a while to see how I like it.
While reading the “other” blog Enrico linked… equally interesting, I became curious not only about the Mitsubishi Hi-uni but also about the Tombow Mono 100, same story as the Kuru Toga, local stores do not carry either of them, so looks like it will be a while before both my wife and I (I am sharing some with her) get to try either of these.
DickBlicks does offer a similar pencil to the Tombow Mono 100, will have to check that out too (Tombow Mono Professional).
Below are a few links (DickBlicks) of some of the products mentioned above.
Staedtler Lumograph Drawing and Sketching Pencils
Tombow Mono Professional Drawing Pencils
Faber-Castell Grip Pencil
If you know of a place in the Bay Area that sells the Tombow Mono 100 pencils, please let me know.