The inaugural Pencil Pushers Class at University of the Pacific Eberhardt School of Business (ESB) is winding down it's Spring semester this week. I mentioned this class in my earlier post here.

Pencil Pushers ClassOne of the class highlights was designing and implementing the Kids Art Day at the Ballpark Contest held at the Pacific Tigers May 4th baseball game vs. UC Riverside. Children who attended the game received a complimentary sample pack of California Republic pencils and had some fun coloring and drawing during throughout the afternoon. A raffle drawing included several variety packages of California Republic’s premium quality Palomino Artist pencil range.

We also congratulated the winning artists from our recently completed Pacific Baseball theme drawing contest who’s artwork was displayed on the jumbotron during the game. We thank the students and teachers from Presentation, Kohl Open, Claudia Landeen, Brookside and John Muir Elementary schools for participating in the drawing contest and we're fortunate enought that our 4th-7th grade winner showed up at the game to recieve her prize as well. To see a selection of participant drawings visit the Kids Art Day @ the Ballpark Gallery and click on any of the images to enlarge and view the other images in the gallery.

Finally, I'd like to thank the six students of the Applied Entreprenership class (aka Pencil Pushers) who participated this semester with the launch of Pencils.com site. I look forward to continued involvement with Pacific's ESB students via our summer intern program and then continuing with this course next Fall.

We are proud to anounce our first locally based promotion and collaboration with local schools to support arts education in the area. As previously discussed here Pencils.com has a close affiliation with the University of the Pacific, here in Stockton, California. Students participating in the Business school's "Pencil Class" have initiated a joint promotion with the Pacific baseball program to encourage local students to participate in an art project and contest with a fun and interesting twist. Read more about entering the contest here.

The "Pencil Class" students are currently working with local elementary schools to build participation through this contest and promotion. An important part of this project is to build involvment with and develop feedback from local teachers on how the Pencils.com website through the Story of Pencils and Teach & Learn channel can improve and become an even better resource for teacher and students.

Whether entering the contest or not children attending the May 4th Pacific vs. UC Riverside baseball game at 1:00pm at Klien Family Field will have the opportunity to participate in "Kids Art Day at the Ballpark". The first 200 children arriving at the game will recieve a sample set of our Spangle coloring pencils. Local children who submit a contest through the website will also receive a free ticket to the game itself.

I am very pleased that we have a new collaboration with Lisa Laughy, the talented illustrator and creator of Ninth Wave Designs. Lisa’s unique artistic style and her meaningful thinking expressed through her written words have provided inspiration for many who have a strong interest in journaling. A devotee of Moleskinei notebooks and the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencil her Ninth Wave Design Store couples great tips on using Moleskines with the wonderful imagery in her galleries. For a time she offered Moleskine and related items at her on-line store.

Lisa was an early adopter of our California Republic Palomino pencils and became our first internet dealer outside of our own Pencil World eBay store. In this post “The Search for the Wild Blackwing” she created the “pencil bench test” that lead to her selection of Palomino pencils as the successor to the discontinued Blackwing 602.

Recently Lisa informed me of her decision to take down her Ninth Wave Designs blog as she has not consistently posted for some time now. I expressed sorrow at the loss of inspiration this would provide to many aspiring artists, illustrators and anyone interested in creative journaling. As a result we came to an agreement that Pencils.com will become the new home for the NWD blog including most of her gallery images and the majority of her creative posts which demonstrate her unique perspective on journaling, art, books, history and even mathematics.

So with the outset of Spring the NWD blog migration season is in full swing and will continue for a week or so more until its new nest is completely built alongside the Palominos, Blackwings and a growing list of pencil species here at Pencils.com. Image posts will be part of the NWD Moleskine Gallery or the Alchemy Notebook Gallery in Creativity Studio. Other posts will find their way to the Journals page within the Inspired Writing section. More pencil specific posts will find their roost in the Collectors Corner. All these posts will also congregate in the Ninth Wave Designs Blog group page assuring that the recently threatened flock Lisa so lovingly nourished remains a protected species.

I thank Lisa for her support in this collaboration and hope that someday we’ll see her make new additions to her very creative body of work we are proud to have provided a new home for. Also she does retain the Ninth Wave Designs Café Press store so I would be remiss in not mentioning that here.

The Pencils.com Store has added several new products from KUM, the German manufacturer of premium quality hand held pencil sharpeners.

California Republic has for several years had an ongoing collaboration with KUM. The first product of this association was the special edition Palomino-KUM Long Point sharpener which is a special edition of KUM’s Automatic Longpoint sharpener adapted to the Palomino’s orange color scheme. This item has been a customer favorite on our eBay Pencil World Creativity Store as an ideal complement to a nice set of Palomino pencils. It gives the premium quality long point our customers have come to prefer with their Palominos.

In 2007 California Republic returned the favor by producing a special limited edition gold and black version KUM-Palomino Premium HB graphitei pencil for distribution in the European market which we are now offering here on Pencils.com Store. The KUM-Palomino is produced to the exact same quality and performance specifications as our normal Palomino HB grade pencils. The KUM-Palomino HB is paired with KUM’s new Correc-Cap eraser on the Pencils.com store. The Correc-cap eraser comes in three color options and is an oversize pencil cap eraser with precision point for accurate erasing. The cap eraser can serve as a protector cap for the pencil point as well.

In addition we’ve added several of our favorite models of KUM’s other hand sharpeners. These include both one and two hole sharpeners in solid brass, SofteGrip Magnesium and a longtime favorite the Correc-Tri Sharpener and Eraser. See all these KUM & KUM-Palomino items now on sale at the Pencils.com store here. For detailed product information on KUM sharpeners see the KUM sharpener WIKI page here.

We are extremely pleased to announce that the Palomino graphitei pencil has been named the official pencil of Grace Animation Studios, the creator of the Avenging Apes of Africa. The Avenging Apes are helping lead the way in a new genre of “ed”utainment cartoons. “It is our desire not only to provide something fun, but something positive and something of value... not just some empty "toon", says Christopher Turner, CEO of Grace Animation Studios and the creator of the Avenging Apes of Africa.

The initial 1 hour DVD tells the tale of the Avenging Apes who are raised by a wise old African bushman named Mogadishu. The Apes combine forces to foil the sinister efforts of master poacher Harry B. Richborne. See a brief trailer at the Avenging Apes video post here as well as this character development animation test.

John Celestri, VP of Animation for Grace Animation is a devoted Palomino Rider who tells me that the Palomino’s “mix of wax and graphite creates lines with a very sensuous feel as the pencil glides across the paper. The Palomino, in essence, becomes an extension of the artist’s finger as it molds the drawing.” John has developed an exciting instructional DVD, called “John the Animator Guy”. In this four part series, Mr. Celestri appears as an animated character who teaches kids and parents the basic principles of traditional 2-D animation. We look forward to seeing these down the line and are hopeful that we’ll have a chance to feature excerpts of these lessons here on Pencils.com as well. Here's a first look at an animation key drawing using the Palomino.