Back to School Pencil Palette and an Ode to Pencils

This back to school pencil palette combines deep graphite gray with warmer wood tones.

Ahhh the smell of freshly sharpened pencils. And the feel of that perfectly honed point against your finger. There are few things about back to school season that I love more than buying new school supplies.

I didn’t realize this about myself until this year when my oldest started high school, and her only school supply was a Chromebook. They deprived me of all the fun of shopping! Fortunately, my youngest was happy to skip up and down the Target aisles with me for all her new folders, pencils, and markers. Yet another reason I hope she never grows up.

I know as a mom I should regret the ever-rising cost of school supplies, and of course I do when I get to the cash register. But who doesn’t love new pencils?

To me, a new pencil is the very definition of kinetic energy. You know, the type of energy that’s stored up in something, waiting to be let out. It’s all in there, tightly bound up in graphite and wood, with a delicate little pink eraser on the end for life’s inevitable missteps. All of it unused, untouched. Pure possibility.

And while we’re on the subject of pencils, let’s talk mechanical pencils. I know they’re imminently functional, and in fact I even have some that I love, but they just aren’t the same. I suppose you can’t beat them for shear convenience and usability, but when I need creativity to flow from my fingertips, the only tool for me is a natural wood pencil. It feels like an extension of my own hand. I even have a tiny groove in my second finger, the exact diameter of a pencil.

The pen may well be mightier than the sword, but for me, the humble pencil is the beginning of all beautiful ideas.

Whether you use mechanical pencils or natural wood, or even a chromebook to do your best work, I wish you a very productive and creative back to school season.