You may have heard that we've been hinting at some shop changes lately, or that our website has been a bit of a mess as we sell out and remove products. There's a reason for all of this. 

In late January/early February, we will be debuting a brand new website and a renovated shop. CW 2.0, we've been calling it for now. Before I tell you about the actual differences, let me first share this: 

Six years ago, when I first put our website online, I had the goal of opening a shop that specializes ONLY in pencils. The products on the website were extremely edited and carefully selected through the lens of a person who wanted to convince New York City that pencils are, indeed, an object that deserves more appreciation. Since then, we've moved to a bigger shop, multiplied the number of products we offer and navigated our way through a global pandemic (so far!).  

The thing is, I don't feel like I need to convince anyone of anything anymore. And as I spent months working alone in my shop this spring, just trying to figure out to save my business, I realized that since this website went live in November 2014, the thing that had become most important to me and my business over the past 6 years is not the concept itself, but the community built around it. This pandemic has forced me to take a hard look at the way I run my business and has made two things apparent: 

1. It's unsustainable and risky to keep a physical storefront open that relies heavily on tourism, especially when that storefront is in a community that might need something different from us as a business. 

2. That I personally wouldn't buy many of the products I'm selling in my shop because they don't align with my ethos as a consumer. That I can be doing better to sell products that encourage better consumer habits and support the types of businesses I personally prioritize. 

CWPE was born simply out of my vision for my very own dream shop, and in a lot of ways, that's what I think has made it so successful. That it's a shop operated by people who really, really care. That the customers who come to see us leave feeling like they had a special experience or that they learned something new. As I've grown as a human, and learned from my mistakes as a shop owner, I've realized that my business needs a hard reset. The world is changing around us, and it feels natural to evolve with it and to strive to build a better, more impactful business for the new climate we're slowly re-entering. I don't want to wait around for things to go back to "normal." I'm more interested in inventing my own new normal. 

That said, in the new year, we'll be shifting gears to provide the things our neighbors and our community have been asking us for all this time. We'll be re-opening as a full service office supply store. Our first love will always be pencils, and we'll still be specializing in writing tools, but we'll also be offering our favorite versions of ALL of the other essential desk tools, as well as a lot of the services you'd hope for from your friendly neighborhood office supplier -- all with the enthusiasm and knowledge that you've come to expect from us. I want my shop to be a place where our neighbors can find the things that they need BEFORE it's a fun, quirky place to visit as a tourist. 

With all of this, we've set some new guidelines for the products we're choosing to sell going forward. We'll be prioritizing brands that are local, small and/or have high standards for transparency, sustainability and ethical business and manufacturing practices. I want to enable our customers to be conscious, mindful, educated consumers and I feel strongly that on the whole, the stationery industry isn't doing enough to encourage this. I'm hoping I can do my part to set a new standard. 

Now, for the logistics: 

Pencil Box Subscription - We will be discontinuing our Pencil Box Subscription service after the March 2021 box. This wasn't an easy decision, but ultimately, it makes more sense to re-allocate the time and resources we put into the boxes into other things, including tools to help you better find the right things that YOU need in your life, instead of us automatically sending stuff that you may or may not need or want. 

Individual pencils - Beginning in the new year, we will no longer be selling pencils individually online. Full transparency: the way things are now, there are many online orders that we actually don't make any money on because of the labor and packaging materials it takes to fulfill individual pencil orders. For our business, it's just not a sustainable way of doing things anymore. We will be introducing more sampler sets to help you find your perfect pencil before committing to a full dozen, will be offering a paid personalized sampler service ,and will continue to sell individual pencils in our physical shop. 

Last Call Items - Throughout the rest of the year, we will be adding products to the "last call" section on our website. These are items that will not be coming with us to the new shop. 

Holiday Season in the shop - In early November, we will be clearing out our physical shop, putting the remaining inventory online and setting it up as a super cute, super efficient holiday gift shop through Christmas. This means that we'll be stocking it with MANY super easy, gift-wrapped sets, lots of seasonal cards,  samplers, great single-item gifts and stocking stuffers. If you want to come to 15 Orchard Street to buy individual pencils and regular stock, do it before the end of October! 

Website - Our new website will be totally different but a lot more user friendly. There will be advanced search/filtering options, better product photography, more organized information, and more intuitive navigation.  

Phew. That was a lot. If you're reading this and you're confused or bummed out by all of this, I get it. But please trust me! I'm not going to spoil any surprises, but I think you're going to like what we're working on. And if you don't, ask me and I'll gladly recommend another small business where you can find the thing that we don't sell anymore. 

Fondly,

Caroline

Almost four months after closing our doors to the public, we are ready to re-open! This first phase for us is going to be a cautious one, as we don't feel comfortable yet allowing full access to the shop as it was pre-Covid. 

To ensure that we'll be able to keep our staff and customers safe and can keep track of what's being touched, this is how it's going to work:

1. We are allowing one customer into the store at a time (two if you're together)

2. Masks are required (ages 3+), worn properly, please.

3. We have set up a service area in the front of the shop with a few things to browse. The rest of the shop is blocked off, but you'll have the full attention of a staff member, who can gather what you're looking for, show you options or pull testers for you to try. 

4. We'll have hand sanitizer available by the door and will sanitize all testers used between customers. 

5. In the event that there's a customer already in the shop when you arrive, please wait outside. 

We recommend that you come with an idea of what you're looking for so we can help you efficiently. Another option is to place an online order for pick-up, which is an option we plan on keeping permanently. 

Our new hours are: 11am-5pm, 7 days a week

We're thrilled to be semi-open again after all this time and are doing our best to make all of our decisions as we continue to adapt based on what is best for the safety of our staff and customers. 

See you soon!

Dear friends and customers, 

Over the past three weeks, we've been using our Instagram account to share resources and utilize our platform to act and promote social change. Our team of 5 is made up of individuals who all agree, without question, that All Black Lives Matter and that the movement we're in the midst of is long overdue. Individually, we've been doing the work behind the scenes to unlearn, utilize the resources available to us to act, and seek ways to commit to the fight long-term. 

And as a business owner, I recognize that it's my responsibility to set an example, to be willing to listen to constructive criticism of my own behavior, and to foster a work environment that actively supports diversity–in the way that I hire employees and in the brands that I choose to stock. There are ways in which I can be better about all of these things, and my eyes have been opened. 

Below is a list of resources and media we've been finding useful and will continue to add to.

We're in this together, for today and tomorrow and the long haul. 

Fondly,

Caroline

A couple of fantastic resources with very thorough lists of information across all categories: 

Fantasy World Master List of Resources on How to Dismantle Systemic Racism - An overwhelmingly dense doc of resources that span every category, updated regularly. 

Resource Document for This Moment by Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes - A doc with lots of recommendations for ways you can act, and lots of recommendations for things to read, podcasts to listen to and articles to check out. 

Something to do: If you're looking to do some serious learning, Rachel Cargle's #DoTheWork course, is a 30 day course (delivered to your inbox) with daily assignments and reading to help you unpack and understand all of the different facets of systemic racism. - Caroline

Something to watch: 13th is a 2016 documentary by the incredible Ava DuVernay (available on Netflix) that demonstrates how deeply racist the US justice system has always been, from the ratification of the 13th Amendment (which abolished slavery) to the contemporary prison-industrial complex. - Alyx

Something to listen to: Justice in America: Episode 20 with Mariame Kaba is critical listening for those who wish to understand prison abolition better. Mariame Kaba is a longtime organizer and champion of prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, among other things. In the episode, she breaks down transformative and restorative justice (TJ and RJ) and dares us all to imagine a world without prisons. - Esther

Esther: Today's dispatch is an act of rebellion somewhat– I have started reading Han Kang's Human Acts, a book that was voted out early in the first round of our book club matchups we hosted on Instagram. My goal is to read it in the original Korean, alongside the English translation. I'm only a few pages along in my dual-language reading project, and I'm not very good at committing to reading books, so we'll see how it goes. Fingers crossed I can stick with it!

Caroline: These days, about 30% of my weekly joy comes from my end-of-week visit to the Union Square Greenmarket, where I buy about 80% of my groceries. I'm trying to keep my money as local as possible, and this time of year is especially fun because all of the good stuff is slowly coming back into season. I've been impatiently awaiting the arrival of strawberries, because I'm tired of apples, but they are very hard to come by right now. Today, I got there early but alas, no strawberries to be found. So instead, I bought this heart-shaped bottle of strawberry wine, which I'm a little terrified to try but am obsessed with because of its charming label and ridiculous bottle. Other new-in-season purchases included peonies, sun gold tomatoes and enough asparagus to include in everything I will cook this week. Maybe next week there will be strawberries. At the very least, it's something to look forward to. 

Julianne: I first tried Deb Perelman's olive oil shortbread with rosemary and chocolate chips when my cousin Hilary brought them to our family's annual Christmas breakfast last year. They were ideal shortbread! The herbal bitterness of rosemary cut through the sweetness perfectly. And who can say no to chocolate chips in a buttery cookie?

So when I found I had all the ingredients, including the fresh rosemary, for my own batch I knew straight away that's what I was going to make. I appreciated that the recipe doesn't ask for butter OR eggs, ingredients that are extra precious in these coronavirus times. My excitement was only a tiny bit dimmed when the whole sheet of shortbread crumbled before I could even slide it out of the pan to slice. My version doesn't look great, and they fall apart if I try to pick them up. But that's where chopsticks come in handy! And they're still mighty tasty. Food52 has the recipe if you'd like to try them for yourself.

Alyx: From what I gather every time I open the Instagram app, we are all discovering new things about our hair. Normally my fiancé cuts my hair, so I don't have the excuse of not being able to see my hairdresser, but for whatever reason it hasn't felt right to cut my short hair or my bangs for the past few months. This is a long-winded way of saying that my hair is a mess and constantly in my face. A couple of weeks ago, I started wrapping my head in a big silk scarf every day, and it's really improved things! For one, I feel more alert with all my hair strapped my skull, and for another, I feel like it makes me look ~cooler~ on Zoom. My favorite way is to knot it above the middle of my forehead, and then tuck in the ends.

Caroline: I had a little bit of an off week this week and wasn't feeling motivated to do much of anything on my days off. Yesterday, I spent the whole day on my roof reading and napping and doing one of my favorite easy crafts: tie dye!! Except I didn't have the necessary supplies, so I tore up an old bed sheet and dyed it with turmeric from my spice cabinet. I'll probably make braided strips out of it to sew into a scrap basket. It was a really fun and short craft that made me feel very industrious and productive with minimal effort. 

Julianne: This week happened to be Stevie Wonder's 70th birthday and to celebrate, a handful of world-class DJs organized a 24-hour party in his honor over Instagram Live. If I had to listen to just one artist for the rest of my life, that whole impossible desert island scenario, Stevie Wonder is the musician I'd choose. So a whole day dedicated to the man, with sets from Questlove, Gilles Peterson, Natasha Diggs, and DJ Spinna--whose annual Wonderfull parties have been the most fun I've had on a dance floor ever--was an absolute treat.

I haven't been able to get into the whole DJ sets from home during quarantine thing but this was something different. I had a ball. The ephemerality of it made it all the more magical. (The Instagram account has since been deleted!) I knew it was exactly as good as I hoped as soon as DJ Spinna came on and opened his set with this classic clip of a young Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross singing the most magical duet version of "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me." Please, listen! And maybe even have your own living room dance party?

Alyx: I have started on a new plant parenthood project! Inspired by a friend, I ordered Venus fly trap seeds on the Internet. Did you know that fly trap seeds are TINY? I'm hoping that this project will be a good balance of involved, but not too difficult. There's so much to learn about growing medium (no fertilized soil for these guys! A lot of houseplant fertilizers will "burn" fly trap roots), amount of sunlight, moisture management, mold prevention, etc. I ordered a bag of growing medium (fancy term for dirt) and a grow light as well. In the past, I've had very mixed success growing plants from seeds to adulthood, so we'll see!

The album cover for 苏州弹词《珍珠塔·后哭塔》(Suzhou Story "Pearl Tower · Crying Tower) by 魏钰卿 (Wei Yuqing); I used Google Translate so I hope the translation is fairly accurate.

Esther: Recently, my sister introduced me to an app called Radiooooo (that's five o's) where you can explore music by country and decade– granted, only as far back as the 1900s. I'm going to come off as a spokesperson for the app here... because I think it's very cool. It's a fun way to come across music you might never have come across otherwise, and I'm finding that it's encouraging me to learn more about the music as I listen.

The song described above, which you can listen to below, is the first I heard on the app. I chose China in the 1920s, and after hearing this, did a little bit of research. According to Wikipedia, it is a tanci, or, "a narrative form of song in China that alternates between verse and prose." The Wiki page is short and worth a read, especially the bit about Chinese women's relationship to tanci. 

Let's talk about the most colorful member of the pencil family– colored pencils! We've all used them, but I bet there's a lot about colored pencils that we still don't know. We already covered the basics of what you can use them for in this handy guide: A Guide to the Non-Graphite, so our journey into the nitty-gritty starts here!

First, let's review some key colored pencil terminology:

Artist (or Professional) Grade – high quality; high concentration of pigment, achieving rich and vibrant color; lightfast to varying degrees, depending on particular pigment

Student (or Scholastic) Grade* - lower quality; lower concentration of pigment; not made to achieve lightfastness

Fugitive - prone to fading when exposed to light; colors that tend to “run away and hide”

Lightfast - resists fading when exposed to light; different pigments have different lightfastness levels, often indicated on the barrel. (Source: Faber-Castell FAQ); see the Colored Pencil Society of America’s page on lightfastness here.

Permanent - waterproof, doesn’t require a fixative

Water-soluble - allows pigment to dissolve when in contact with water

*I’m categorizing scholastic and student grade together, though some consider them separately. I’ve read that scholastic grade is intended for young children or complete beginners and student grade is the next step up, but I’ve also read the exact opposite. So, I’m treating them as one big category of lower-than-artist-grade quality for the more casual user.

Formula

The makeup of a colored pencil is different from that of a graphite pencil. It’s all in the name– colored pencils contain pigment, which lends them their color. No graphite here!

A colored pencil’s core is made up of pigment, additives, and binding agents– there are oil-based and wax-based binders. Water-soluble colored pencils, or watercolor pencils, contain binders that allow the pigment to dissolve in water, allowing you to paint with them. (Source: Caran d’Ache FAQ - What makes a pencil or pastel water-soluble?)

Fun fact: All oil- and wax-based colored pencils contain a mix of oils and waxes, despite their different labels– even water-soluble colored pencils contain wax!

Find our breakdown on water-soluble pencils here: Guide to Water-Soluble Pencils

Base

General consensus is that oil/wax-based colored pencils run firmer than water-soluble colored pencils, but there is still variation in hardness across brands. Water-soluble colored pencils lean on the softer side and also drag a bit because of the drier formula, while oil/wax-based colored pencils feel smoother. This doesn’t indicate a difference in quality, just a difference in formula.

I should mention that the existence of the term oil-based likely came about due to translation issues, and that it might be more helpful to consider oil- and wax-based in the same category. (Source: Creative Art Materials - Oil vs. Wax)

Grade

Student grade color pencils are ideal for beginners or kids who need a basic coloring set, plain and simple. The Crayola and Prang sets are the ones I remember from my childhood–fairly cheap and do their job without any extra fanfare.

I tested nearly all of our student grade sets and ended up with some interesting results! I was most impressed by Faber-Castell’s Grip EcoPencils, which give you a lot of bang for your buck– they’re very smooth and offer nice, punchy color for a student grade set. Caran d'Ache's Swisscolors performed great, besides slight inconsistent performance across colors; actually, some of the colors were pigmented enough they looked artist grade. Viarco’s Coloradd colored pencils were a tad dry and scratchy, but still a really decent student grade set.

Artist grade colored pencils offer both high quality pigment and a high concentration of it, resulting in rich, vibrant color; better blending ability than student grade; and smoother application onto paper. They're also made with lightfastness in mind and retain their color better over time. Every pigment has different lightfast capabilities, though, so some colors are less lightfast than others. Pro-tip: This is also why choosing acid-free or archival paper as your drawing surface is important, if you’re concerned with preserving your work.

In my testing, the Tombow Irojiten felt firmer than both the Faber-Castell Polychromos and Caran d'Ache Supracolors, which felt similar to each other in softness and looked equal in terms of pigment load. A note about the Tombow 1500, included in the student/artist grade comparison chart: This is listed as an artist grade colored pencil, but no official lightfast ratings are available to support that label. That being said, it performs really well and is very smooth and highly pigmented. It also comes at basically a discount price for an artist grade set, so there's that!

With all that said, everyone has different preferences and who knows what’ll end up feeling right for you. Different situations call for different colored pencil sets! But, if you need a nudge in the right direction, here are my lightning round answers for best colored pencil sets.

Artists: Caran d’Ache Supracolors & Faber-Castell Polychromos

Children (& the young at heart): Faber-Castell Grip EcoPencil Set & Koh-I-Noor Tri-Tone Colored Pencil Set

Travelers: Tombow Mini Color Set & Caran d’Ache Bicolors

Gifts: Blackwing Colors & Tombow Irojiten

My still life set up in the center; going clockwise, drawings by: Cynthia (crayon) Lise (digital), mine (pen/marker), Stephanie (colored pencil + watercolor); Paulina's is unfinished and not pictured here, sadly!

Esther: One of the few pleasant side effects of our current reality is that I see and talk to my friends much more than before. This past weekend, we held our first virtual drawing night, which was also the first time we’d had a dedicated amount of time for communal drawing in years! All of us worked from a still life I cobbled together in the first minutes of our video call– turns out composing a good still life is something of an art in itself. I think I managed okay?

Still life drawing with other people always yields interesting and varied results, despite working from the same subject, which I really love– it’s just so cool seeing the evidence of different perspectives and art-making decisions at the end, all next to each other. Obviously, mine is a reflection of the actual image because of the whole webcam situation!

Alyx: I am a shameless sports addict, and I've really been missing the comforting sound of a baseball game in the background. But this week live baseball returned! Not in the United States, but in South Korea in the form of the KBO. I have chosen to support the Samsung Lions because they are based in Daegu, the city in which I was born. Unfortunately the Lions haven't had a winning record in many season, and this season isn't expected to be much different. It's also a little strange to watch a game with no fans in the stadium. But still! The crack of a home-run hit sounds the same anywhere in the world, and the KBO is famous for its bat flips. I'm really looking forward to seeing some games with fans, since the KBO also has a notoriously excellent fan culture--including elaborate cheers and songs, walk-up songs specially composed for each batter, and really cool rec specs. Anyway, it's been a way of scratching that sports itch, as well as an excuse to bust out a fresh baseball scoring pencil!

Caroline: The weather during my past two days off has been warm and sunny, but as you have probably seen in the news, now that spring is upon us, New Yorkers aren't always doing a great job at social distancing. So, I've been taking my bike out really early in the morning to visit places that would otherwise be crowded with tourists, or right now, crowded with New Yorkers eager to get outside. On Thursday I biked down to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across and back, which was my FIRST TIME EVER. It was empty, the sky was clear and the river was sparkling. I may have shed a tear under all of my face gear because it was so beautiful. I felt inspired to go on another little adventure, so yesterday, I left home a little before 7am and biked up to Central Park, where I rode the 6.7 mile road that loops around the whole thing. It was a nice escape (and a real workout!) and for a moment I felt like I wasn't in the middle of Manhattan. The ride down 5th Avenue on my way home was fun too, because I passed so many NYC landmarks. I'm looking forward to more early morning tourist moments as the weather starts to get nicer. 

 Julianne: I adore Green-Wood Cemetery even in non-pandemic times, but have been especially appreciative of this beautiful historic cemetery in the last few months. (Pencil trivia: did you know Eberhard Faber is interred there?) Green-Wood Cemetery extended its operations to accommodate visitors who need more green space while we're all cooped up at home.

I recently spent an hour walking through the cemetery and sitting next to this beautiful tree that was at full bloom. From afar the tree was total spring magnificence, and up close it was vibrating with bees happily feasting all around it. With few other people around I snuck a few maskless inhales and the spring air smelled almost sweet. The hour I spent next to this tree has got to be one of my favorite springtime memories.

We often get questions about soft pencils: which ones are the darkest, which ones are the best for sketching, which ones are the smoothest. But we rarely give a lot of love to the harder side of the scale. Sometimes we'll get a woodworker who needs to make super-precise measurements, or an architect who wants something extra fine to make a diagram, but otherwise, this side of the grading scale often goes ignored.

Hard pencils have a lot of advantages though! They don't smudge as much (lefties, I'm looking at you!) and you don't have to sharpen them very often. They also last a lot longer than their softer counterparts. In fact, I've been working on a Tombow Mono 100 H since January and I still have two and a half inches left to go. So I got together all the 2Hs we have on offer and did some tests:

Caran d'Ache Edelweiss 2H
Caran d'Ache Natura 2H
Viarco Desenho 2H
Tajima 2H
Mitsu-bishi Hi-Uni 2H

Here's a simple writing test. The lined paper is Maruman paper (a smooth Japanese paper--it's the same one that's in the Mnemosyne notebooks) and the blank paper is 104 gsm Strathmore sketch paper.

As you can see, the Caran d'Ache Edelweiss was the lightest and the Viarco Desenho was the darkest. This surprised me, since I think of Viarco as running on the harder side, but it was distinctly darker than the Japanese 2Hs.

Another advantage of harder pencils is that they tend to erase really well. Here I tested the erasability of the pencils with the Sumo eraser: 

All of them erased pretty well (a testament to the wonderful Sumo eraser, too).  Because the Edelweiss is so hard, it left the deepest indentation. Even the dark Viarco erased pretty completely though!

Because 2H pencils are popular with people who need to make precise diagrams and measurements, I also performed a ruler test. Here are six-inch lines drawn with each pencil: 

The Edelweiss was again the lightest and thinnest; this pencil might be ideal if you're looking for the smallest line-width. The Tajima 2H was designed to be a carpenter's pencil, and I think it's slightly more forgiving feel makes sense, I would trust it to make a thin line even across a bit of wood grain or texture. The Hi-Uni felt the smoothest of all of them. Despite being the darkest and thickest, the Viarco still felt the most friction-y.

Finally, I tested the point retention of each pencil:

Unsurprisingly, the Edelweiss had the best point retention. The point itself was barely changed, and the line-width was pretty consistent for all ten lines. The Viarco Desenho was the worst, with a noticeable blunting of the tip. Of the two Japanese pencils, the Hi-Uni seemed to have better point retention, but only by a tiny amount.

Overall, I had a better time playing with these hard pencils than I thought I would. I generally think of 2Hs as nails, but they really aren't, and the Japanese ones in particular are quite smooth to write with. I think my overall favorite was the Tajima for its balance of darkness and fineness. But each one has its virtues.

Alyx: While I've mostly been enjoying the chance to try out some new recipes while at home, sometimes I want something fast and easy, the equivalent of popping out for a quick sandwich from the corner store. Often I reach for a pack of instant noodles. My favorite right now is Chapagetti, which is the instant version of jajangmyeon. While it's WONDERFUL on its own with the oil and seasoning that comes in the pack, recently I've been upgrading it a bit. I slice some cabbage thinly and add it to the noodles about a minute before the noodles are done. While that's happening, I fry an egg and put it on top of the finished noodles. Do you guys have any favorite instant noodle tricks?

Esther: I've been listening to A LOT of music lately, so the mini playlist is making a return. Sound-wise it's a little all over the place, again, but I just wanted to throw together songs that push me forward and serve as a reality check, all in one. Imagine someone taking you aside, demanding you get it together while you've been somewhat of a mess– something akin to that tough love is what I tried to pin down in this mix. A little reminder to commit to the fight, keep looking forward, practice gratitude, and always make space for hope! The intro song is from The Mountain Goats' The Sunset Tree, pictured above. Listen here. 

Caroline: For the first month-ish of isolation I was in a reading funk and just didn't have the mental energy to read books. But then about two weeks ago I started an epic binge and not I can't stop reading. I've ready 7 books in 2 weeks and have spent my leisure time doing almost nothing else. That is, except for watching TV shows adapted from books. Currently I'm watching Normal People (a book that I felt indifferent about, but the TV show! Much better) and High Fidelity (which is EXCELLENT, even for those who didn't read the book). It's been fun. My days off currently look like this: 4 hours of reading in the morning. Lunch. A few hours of reading in the afternoon. Maybe dinner. 2 hours of crafting or doing something while watching adapted books on Hulu. Bedtime, more reading. And in case you're wondering, yes, I did watch Little Fires Everywhere and I would like those hours of my life back, please. View this post on Instagram

View this post on Instagram

My name is Ford! I am a homebody who loves to nap cuddled up with you! I am a smart guy and know some commands; treats tend to help me listen 😁. I love going for walks and I am always up for an adventure. Meeting new people is fun, but I like to warm up to them first before being petted. I get along with the lady puppers and love to play, but some male dogs intimidate me. I am also potty-trained and love a routine! If you are a homebody like me and need a cuddle buddy - you’ve found your match! Apply to meet me right here! www.strayrescue.org/ford

A post shared by Stray Rescue of St. Louis (@strayrescuestl) on Feb 4, 2020 at 10:34am PST

Julianne: Cooking projects have lost their appeal, solo walks around my same half-dozen neighborhood routes feel hollow, I decline most of the already small number of Zoom hangout invites I get, and I started reading Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower at the wrong time in our global crisis! So what have I been doing this week? I learned about an animal rescue organization called Stray Rescue of St. Louis on Instagram.

They do incredible work and, especially important for my purposes, have a powerful social media presence filled with regular stories of heartbreaking and heartwarming rescues. I sunk into each one. I never grew up with animals and am nervous around most, but fell HARD for these dogs and this organization's fiery dedication to them. 

One guy who stole my heart? This dog named Ford who, I'll further confess, I wouldn't at first glimpse think would be a dog I'd want to share my life with. But Ford is me in dog form, I'm fairly certain. The two of us would get along very, very well, putzing around the house and napping on the couch. And all of a sudden Ford's chunky build and sweet eyes won me over. So what'd I do this week? I fell in love.

Today we're bringing you an interview with Sena Kwon, a New York City illustrator whose work I learned about at the famed Comics Arts Brooklyn festival last fall. If you've been to the multi-day comics and art book fair you know the place is a visual overload. Imagine hundreds of ridiculously skilled artists sharing everything in every style from spare and subtle to eye-popping and absurd. My eyes were going in cross-eyed circles after a few hours of walking up and down the rows in the huge gymnasium, and then I came across Kwon's work. 

Her slim zine Flip Flop Tick Tock caught my eye because Kwon made it in pencil, and the quiet, mostly wordless spreads had an intimacy that you only get with graphite. She managed to layer so much texture and feeling into each page. Experiencing her work was like getting a visual breather.

Sena was generous enough to answer our questions about her work, her inspirations, and how she overcomes the tough parts of the creative process. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Can you tell us a little about yourself? Where do you live? How long have you been making art?

I am a Korean illustrator and comic artist currently living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Being an illustrator has been my only dream since I was able to read and that has not changed through the years.

I grew up moving from country to country, and sometimes not being able to speak the local language. Because of this, I’ve always loved picture books and movies that narrate in visual languages as a way to circumvent more verbal forms of communication.

Can you tell me about the inspiration for this zine? It's mostly wordless and feels like it celebrates friendship and food and togetherness, and New York!

That’s right! This zine is like a wordless diary of mine. Each page captures 24 hours a day, and each spread represents 12 months of activities I used to do. By the time you read all of my zine, you have a glimpse of my whole year.

I sometimes enjoy moments of silence, feeling like there is no time existing in my space. I am sure it’s not just my own experience, and it's one everyone has had before. I wanted to capture sudden silence in this zine.

I was fortunate to have good friends to share a lot of interests with, such as food, drinks and culture. By the way, it is not only about New York, I included my unforgettable two years in Baltimore. I was in the Illustration Practice MFA Program from Maryland Institute College of Art before moving to New York. I love both of these cities with sweet bitterness, they are wild towns with sweet spots in corners.

You work in a variety of mediums. What do you like about working in pencil? 

I always prefer starting drawing with pencil. Although I feel comfortable working in digital as much as traditional mediums, I sometimes lose a concept of proportion when I start sketching in digital. I enjoy the ritual of sharpening pencils and adding darkness in multiple layers using graphite before moving into the digital process.

Can we talk tools? What pencils do you use? Which hardnesses and brands? 

I am not picky about brands. I can see Faber-Castell, Tombow, Mono J, The Zone (a Korean brand), all 4B from my pencil tray. I use Muji’s pencil shaped erasers.  

How did you add the spot color? Did you do it digitally or on the page? 

It depends on the scenes. If the images need pencil texture in spot color, I draw on tracing paper on top of the main drawings. But if I want thick, rich color, digital works better for me.

How do you get over the painful and stressful and frustrating parts of the artistic process?

I take a walk or start cooking when I hit mild-level walls during the process. But my true frustration is that I am narcoleptic. I wake up dropping my pencils or other tools no matter how much I was fully focused on my work before. I used to hate myself for a while for falling asleep in school or while I work, now I am getting better at shortening my naps and getting back to work.  

Thank you so much Sena. Are you an artist who works in pencil or do you know someone we should profile? Email us at info@cwpencils.com!