I am yet to try pencils fully for my day journaling. But I want to pen down some initial thoughts anyway.
The feel of writing with the pencil lead is fun. The one I have now of an extra bold is a bit too soft for my liking, just as how I do with smooth tip pen nibs. With a harder pencil lead I want to try next, it should be better.
Even with this extra bold pencil I have, the first few strokes soon after the pencil has been sharpened are good. But just after a couple of words of writing, the feel is quite different, with the tip smoothing out. And after a couple of lines of writing, the pencil writes even smoother and broader, much to my dislike. Even when I press hard when writing, the imprint is quite light. I don’t quite like it.
But I write with a pencil faster than with a pen. The effort is not deliberate, unlike with pens. I actually prefer the conscious experience of using pens.
When we write with a pencil, minutely the lead powder actually spills across strokes. This makes the writing a bit less sharp. The overall imprint is not as precise as with a pen.
When we write with a pen, even within each alphabet, due to microscopic changes and differences in pressure, the ink imprint varies. In pencil writing it is less apparent.
Pens offer a hell lot of variation in nib points and how they vary even within the same tip point across different brands and models. This variation itself offers a much wider analogue experience while using. Add to it that minutely the tip points adapt to how we write over a period of time, you have an exclusive experience with each pen.
And if we include the differences in pen shape, material, and weight, the experience potential is huge. And the number of types of inks we can use in pens throws an entire new dimension.
I guess I like fountain pens a lot more. But just as I like using a variety of pens, so also throwing a few pencils increases the arsenal.
And if I were to choose only one between the two, I would definitely choose a pen — fountain pen obviously. Pencils supplement the experience. It is not about this or that.
I have a strange attitude of appreciating and enjoying what each product offers, as long as it is good within that. It was true with automobiles when I equally enjoy a Skoda Octavia Rally Sport car and a Maruti 800, and equally a Yamaha R15 sports motorcycle and an elephant ride on a Royal Enfield 350cc old bike.
And so it is with pencils and fountain pens!
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