As a stationery brand, we are always curious how and what people use our stationery goods for. With this new blog series, focusing on the hands at "work" and beyond, we ask five questions about the usage and meaning of the stationery tools to our friends in Los Angeles.
For our inaugural post, we visited a LA based painter, Ryan Fenchel's studio
in Glassell Park, Los Angeles.
in Glassell Park, Los Angeles.
Above, Ryan is using the Mitsubishi Dermatograph Soft Colored Pencil to start out his painting.
Q1. What do you do with these color pencils?
I mostly use them to draw in my sketchbook, but since they are oil based, I've been able to incorporate them into some oil paintings as well. This has been a rich addition to the brush and oil stick mark-making I've been employing.
Q2. In our technology driven world, what does it mean to make things by your hand to you?
Besides grounding me in a long history, 'by hand' is how my art-brain thinks. I do use a computer as a tool quite often, but at the heart of my process, I need to think with my hands. For me, that means giving them a drawing tool and having a read/react relationship to the image I'm building. I learn more through this process, even if it's a slower one, than when I plot out an image prior to working and merely 'execute'.
Q3. Pencils or Mechanical Pencils?
Definitely both.
Q4. What’s in your pen case?
Drawing tools and a glue stick; colored pencils, ebony pencils, mechanical pencils, brush markers, and erasers.
Drawing tools and a glue stick; colored pencils, ebony pencils, mechanical pencils, brush markers, and erasers.
Ryan is showing us what's inside of his pen case, also from Hightide.
Q5. What is your most favorite stationery?
For over 20 years now I've been using 14x11 inch sketchbooks. I use my sketchbooks as an important thinking space and this size allows my thoughts to sprawl.
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Ryan Fenchel lives and works in Los Angeles.
