Pencils and Markers I Have Known

Three Pencils and Millions of Markers You Need in Your Life

C: “I need a black Sharpie.”

H: “Here, have this black Sharpie. I’ve got a whole box.”

C: “Sorry what I meant is I need is a 24-pack of Color Burst Sharpies in assorted colors, one of which happens to be black.”

Welcome to October, everyone. Shelf Life is back with more of the thoughts and opinions on writing instruments that nobody asked for and no one wants.

Pencils

After the article on Pens I Have Known, avid Shelf Life reader and longtime parent My Dad wrote to ask about the Blackwing 602 pencil. He wrote, “John Steinbeck used Blackwing 602 pencils. He used 300 of them to write East of Eden. I just wonder why Blackwing 602 is so great.” Why did John Steinbeck like the Blackwing 602 so much? What is a #2 pencil? What does HB mean? What makes a great pencil, anyway?

Here’s a fun fact about fancypants pencils: If I were to use 300 Blackwing 602 pencils today to write a 690-page novel, it would cost me around $625—or almost $1 per typeset page—because they are that expensive. I would definitely feel like whatever I was writing had better be a masterpiece at $2 a pencil. Maybe don’t use this pencil to write your novel unless you scored a juicy advance.

Graphite Scale

The stuff in the middle of the pencil that leaves a mark on your paper is graphite. It’s not lead, so it’s fine to chew on if you are so inclined. Pencils have never contained lead. When graphite was first discovered, people thought it was a type of lead. It’s not. Pencils have always contained graphite. When people talk about “lead pencils,” that’s not a special type of pencil that doesn’t use graphite. No pencils contain the element lead (Pb). Graphite is carbon! It’s not lead. Stop trying to make lead happen.

The harder the graphite, the lighter the mark it makes on the paper. The softer the graphite, the blacker the mark. The traditional graphite grading scale ranks pencils with Hs (hardness) and Bs (blackness). An HB pencil is right in the middle, equally hard and black. The scale then runs from B to 10B getting softer, and H to 10H getting harder. That middle pencil, the HB, is equivalent to that trusty #2 pencil of standardized testing fame. The harder the pencil, the less often you have to sharpen it. The softer the pencil, the less pressure you need to write or draw, which can make them more comfortable to use and easier to erase.

Three Pencils You Need

Mechanical

When you absolutely, positively must use a pencil. I use a mechanical pencil exclusively for drawing layouts and hand lettering before I go over them with pen. Mechanical pencils are great because they never need to be sharpened and they draw a nice, fine line. You can get them in the same diameters as pen tips (from .3mm to 1.3mm, and even larger if you want). You can find mechanical pencil graphite in the H and B ranges but they’re specialty items—most mechanical pencils are HB. Even inexpensive models are usually refillable so these are environmentally friendly. My personal choice is a Zebra .5mm mechanical pencil. Both the graphite and the eraser are refillable.

Red

The red pencil is an old friend of mine. A lot of proofreaders mark their corrections electronically on a proof PDF these days, but I know some publishers that still prefer they mark paper proofs with a red pencil (some even allow green). Marking corrections with a pencil is heading the way of the dodo, but I still keep a few red pencils around my office for exactly that application.

When I used to mark up proofs in-house at a publisher, I used whatever red pencil was laying around the mailroom. Later, doing freelance work, I developed a preference. In my considered opinion, the best red writing pencil you can get is the Hermitage 510 by Musgrave. Sharpens well, not too soft. The built-in eraser sucks. (Every built-in eraser sucks. Invest in a Pentel hi-polymer block eraser.) The Hermitage 510 has the inexpensive-to-good ratio that I wish everything had.

Look, there’s no easy way to say this next part so I will say it the hard way: I don’t know why people like the Dixon Ticonderoga Erasable in carmine. I just don’t. You have to use too much pressure to get a good line and when you get enough pressure the tip snaps. Splinters when sharpened, whether with a manual or electric sharpener. If you love the Ticonderoga for editing or grading, I would love to hear why. More expensive than the Hermitage 510 and nowhere near as good.

Why not just get a mechanical red pencil? Because I never knew it was a thing. If I were still in the business of marking paper proofs, I would definitely give them a try.

Non-Repro

Back in the olden days, there was a certain shade of blue that printing presses and copiers couldn’t pick up and that is called non-reproducible blue. I used to use it all the time in my early career. Whenever the publisher wanted to rerelease an old, out-of-print book and we didn’t have electronic files for it, Catherine and her non-repro-blue pencil would get a chance to shine. 

I would make a new half-title page, title page, and copyright page using a word processor and draw a big, black X across the corresponding pages in the original book. Then I would use my non-repro pencil to mark every page with its proper page number (including unnumbered front matter pages, which take Roman numerals) and with notes as necessary (eg, “blank page” or “END”). The numbering was so that, after the book was despined at the printer, the prepress specialist could keep the pages in order. Then, when the pages went under the photo equipment, the writing wouldn’t show up. Non-reproducible!

I bet you never imagined that books were still being made that way in the 21st century.

Artists and designers use non-repro pencils all the time, but I imagine they are used less in publishing than they used to be. The tradition of doing a first draft in “blueline” is alive and well, and most graphics software suites make it easy to remove or hide your bluelines. The two non-repro pencils I’m most familiar with are the Staedtler Non-Photo and the Prismacolor Col-Erase in Non-Photo Blue. The Staedtler doesn’t have a built-in eraser, but is a better pencil for writing. I’ve never met a colored pencil that erases cleanly, including the Prismacolor.

As with red, non-reproducible blue now comes in a .7mm mechanical pencil lead from Pilot. They call it “soft blue” but the consensus is—it doesn't scan.

Blackwing 602

Now that you have an excellent working knowledge of pencils, what exactly is so special about the Blackwing 602? Well, for one it has a replaceable eraser. Why would you want that? I have no idea. I don’t use an eraser that much when I write with a pencil, only really erasing when I’ve drawn over something with pen and want to clean up my guidelines (for which I use a separate block eraser). I can’t imagine going through an entire built-in eraser before I finish the pencil if I’m just using it to write words. How many mistakes did Steinbeck make? The 602 is an HB pencil, maybe leaning toward B, so approximately equivalent to a #2 pencil or a little softer. Steinbeck wrote that he liked how black the mark of a 602 is and that he could write faster with it than with other pencils. Both of those things are likely due to the soft HB graphite. 

At the end of the day, I would not spend this much on a pencil when it’s my least favorite way to write. A reasonable substitute at about half the price would be the Palomino HB, which some consider the “gateway pencil” into fine graphite writing. If you like pencils, you want a luxury pencil for writing, and you don’t mind dropping some cash on it, the Blackwing 602 is queen. 

Markers

I love markers as much as I dislike pencils. I had to give some serious thought to how I would organize the vast sea of information about markers into a palatable few paragraphs. In order to do so, I’m primarily going to talk about tip type and ink composition. Just as an FYI: A “felt-tip pen” refers to any marker with a tip made out of fiber, like a Sharpie or a Hi-Liter.

Tip Type

Keep in mind when picking a marker that many offer a dual-tip design, where each end of the marker has a different tip—like a brush tip at one end and a bullet at the other. Shop carefully to maximize your marker purchases and save money by getting two in one.

Fine Point

Your classic Sharpie marker has a fine-point tip. Just like a bullet tip but it comes to a point. This is pretty good for writing and okay for coloring as long as you’re not trying to cover a huge area. What can I say about fine-point markers? I like Sharpies. What a marker, honestly. Cheap and lots of colors.

Bullet Tip

This is the next-best tip for writing and about as good for coloring as a fine-point tip. It’s fairly similar to a fine-point except it comes to a round end instead of a point. In my experience, a bullet-tip marker is pretty equivalent to a fine-point marker, and I personally prefer fine. I don’t see a real need to have both types. Therefore, I don’t have a lot of bullet-tip markers in my collection—except where they come on the other end of a brush.

Chisel Tip

Your highlighter. Great for coloring. I like these for filling in shapes because the square edge lets me get right up against my pen line without getting color outside (usually). I also like using these to shade alternate rows when I’m drawing a table by hand, rather than using a black pen line to mark off every row. Sharpie makes a chisel-tip marker that’s alright. I strongly prefer the Zebra Mildliner, though, because it comes in gentle colors (gray is my favorite) and is dual-ended, so you can get a chisel on one end and a bullet on the other (also comes in a brush-and-bullet configuration).

Brush Tip 

The brush tip is great for lettering, calligraphy, and coloring, all of which I am terrible at. I just mentioned that the Zebra Mildliner comes in a brush tip (with a bullet on the other end), and I do like the Zebra family of writing instruments. Definitely a solid choice. But I would be remiss if I did not mention the Tombow Dual Brush (brush on one end and a fine/bullet on the other). Tombows come in striking 10-marker sets (nine colors and a blender). I love the ones I have and they 100% deserve a better hand-letterer than me to use them.

Ink Composition

Marker ink can be made from all kinds of things and markers are described in all different ways. What’s xylene? Which markers are considered permanent? What kind of marker is blendable? How do I know if my marker is archival?

There are three main ink suspensions for markers: alcohol, water, and solvent. The color itself inside the suspension may be dye or pigment (just like with pens), and oil-based marker suspensions technically exist, but the easiest way to sort marker types is by those three.

Alcohol 

Alcohol-based markers are the standard for artists. They have the most vibrant colors and the widest available color range. They can be blended using rubbing alcohol or a marker designed for that purpose (just a marker that has no pigment and dispenses rubbing alcohol). The alcohol evaporates faster than water so these are less likely to smudge than a water-based marker. Many permanent markers are alcohol-based, and the drawing you do with them is waterproof which is a criterion for being archival. The downside? Alcohol-based markers are more expensive than water-based ones, significantly if you want to get really good ones. Some of the common brands of alcohol-based markers include the noble Sharpie (my fave), the Copic (really nice, pricey, and favored by visual artists), and the Prismacolor.

Water

Water-based markers are not considered archival (they’re not waterproof!) or permanent. They can be blended with water or a purpose-made blending marker, though you run the risk of soaking right through your paper trying to blend if the paper isn’t super thick. The color is usually fairly translucent, but can be built up with care—I try to let my paper dry after applying layer or two, so that I don’t waterlog my paper. These are cheaper than alcohol-based markers so they’re great for a hobbyist like me who does not want to spend too much. Sakura and Tombow make very nice water-based markers.

Solvent

These are markers that use a solvent like xylene in place of alcohol to suspend the pigment or dye. They have a very strong smell and probably are not safe for kids to use, but have some benefits in terms of ink opacity and being able to write on many different surfaces. The big name in xylene-based markers is Chartpak. Not much, if any, price advantage over alcohol-based. These would be my last choice for using on paper. I don’t own a single one.

Opaques, Paints, and Metallics

Finally, all kinds of markers come in fun types like opaque, paint, and metallic. For instance, I have alcohol-based metallic Sharpies and some water-based metallic paint markers. Paint and metallic markers are good for writing on dark or black paper or putting details on top of shapes you’ve filled in with pen or another marker. Acrylic paint markers are water-based and non-toxic and can give really nice opaque coverage on a wide variety of surfaces. I use my bronze and silver Sharpies way more than I expected I would.

Did I miss a writing implement? I think I’ve covered the whole broad spectrum at this point but if you have a burning desire to know about straight pens, quills, styli, China markers, and chalk, just let me know and I will figure it out for you.

Coming up next Tuesday—I hope you’re up for some antics with semantics! Make sure to subscribe, stay tuned, and have a lovely weekend!

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