Mr. Pencil’s Learn to Draw and Write is an enjoyable brand new game for the children’s Leapster. This game cartridge has got a sequence of games which explain and teach the subjects drawing and reading, the enjoyable and simple way. This game is highly recommended for the children of age 4 and above.
The game has dozens of art tools and more than 100 step by step lessons in it. It lets the children draw, write and create anything they will imagine. Here are some of the technical details of the game:
-There are more than 100 lessons which help you draw, write and create.
-Go along as it is understood how to write higher case and smaller case letters and also the numbers from 1 to 10.
-You can also create an animated flip book, color images or play engaging, creative games.
-You can draw flora and fauna, shapes and comic strips as you learn the techniques such as shading and perspective.
-This game also teaches you how to write letters and numbers, drawing techniques, colors, forms and sequencing.

This game is uniquely designed to educate children the techniques which they can transfer to real paper. Because of the program’s stylus and touch screen, children can go directly on to the canvas. The stylus when applied to the touch screen is like a pencil on paper. There are instructions provided to help children draw.

Another important factor for the popularity is the price. Very different from the bad feeling you get when you are paying for a Pokémon game with a 50 $ bill. One or two of the erasers are not likely to affect your pocket too much. And more importantly if you get tired of the design there are people willing to trade it.

These Japanese erasers are very nice gifts for your children going to school. The reason? The secret is-this is the only school requirement which also happens to be a toy. This is a disguise as the teachers cannot get angry about them as they are part of the school supplies. It is heard that some of the teachers go to the extent of banning the use of these erasers as the children are more interested in playing with them rather than attending to the school work. When there is an instruction for the children to stop playing with them, they can actually say that it is an eraser and not a toy. Well, the solution? Most kids don’t like to actually having to use the eraser. So a clever teacher may ask the student to erase something with them. Of course most kids will tuck the eraser away rather than actually having to use it and get it dirty.

Due to the little cost involved in their purchase, it is easily possible for anyone to buy and use them.

Indelible pencils are the pencils that produce a different colored mark when the original mark gets wet. Indelible pencils were first made with a silver nitrate base. The original patent for indelible pencils says that they are as useful as an ordinary pencil but more permanent, as the marks cannot be erased with rubber.

Copying pencils use a dye also called ink. Copying pencil marks do not change color when they get wet. These pencils are made from a wax and dye mixture.

Drafting pencils are the pencils with a lead degree of 3H or more.

Wood-less pencils are graphite rods that usually come in a plastic casing

Colored pencils are the pencils that are made using a mixture of graphite and different colored wax. These pencils mark in a wide range of colors.

China markers are the pencils that have a thick waxy core. These pencils will write on almost any surface and come in all colors. Pulling a string that is attached to the pencil commonly sharpens these pencils.

Carpenter Pencils are the pencils that are rectangular in shape. This shape keeps them from rolling away. These pencils also have a rectangular core, which allows for both thin and thick lines. These pencils are often stronger than other pencils and allowing them to be place into a bag with heavy tools and not to be broken. The builders use these pencils because they will make mark on rough wood and stone with ease.

Golf pencils are the short pencils, which are usually of 4 or 5 inches in length. They do not have an eraser.

Sketching pencils or drawing pencils are specially designed for drawing. These pencils come in many different grades of hardness. The more clay when mixed into the graphite makes the lead harder. Harder lead draws a softer line. Conversely, the more lead when mixed into the pencil makes the lead softer. Softer lead draws a thicker darker line.

Highlighter pencils are a form of makeup. These pencils come in a variety of textures and colors. Highlighter pencils reflect light. This makes them a good tool for makeup artists but difficult to get the hang of for others

There are currently 2 pencil rating systems. One is in Europe and one is in the US. The one in the US is a numerical system while the European system is based upon a lettering scheme. The European system is the one that most drawing pencils use. In this system, pencils are rated by hardness (H), blackness (B), and rather the point is fine (F). The softest pencil in this system is rated 9(B) while the hardest is rated 9(H). A pencil manufacturer, named Brookman, in the early 1900s, developed this system. In the US, the rating uses a numerical value. According to Mr Pencil, the ratings are as follows:

#1=B
#2=HB
#2 ½=F
#3=H
#4=2H

Mr Pencil think that the most common pencil in the US is the #2.

Grinding graphite and clay into a stiff doughy consistency makes up a pencil. This gooey stuff is then passed through a small hole in a tungsten carbide die. The finished product is then cut into seven-inch lengths. These leads are then dried and put in a kiln to be fired. Once they come out of the kiln they are infused with a lubricant to make them write smoother. The different gradients in pencils are dependent upon how much clay is added to the mixture initially. The wood used to encase the graphite core must be soft enough to sharpen easily, yet also be stable enough not to bend. The most popular wood for this purpose is the Red Cedar. When the wood is first milled it is seven inches long and around two inches in diameter. Then six half circle grooves are cut into one side to allow the graphite lead to be inserted. After that, two grooves are glued together with the graphite encased between them. Once the glue has cured a special machine cuts the pencil into the correct shape, it is then painted and the grade is printed on the side. In total, 125 steps have gone into the making of each pencil. It would cost someone around $50.00 in labor and materials to make one 10-cent pencil.

Today, most of the pencils have an eraser. However, 16 years ago they did not. The reason for this is believed to be because teachers thought that children would make more mistakes. After all, with an eraser you can easily rub out a mistake.

Did you know pencils couldn’t be used in space? In the 1970s, a story was circulated that NASA was spending vast amounts of money to develop an instrument that will write in space. This task is not as easy as you may think. The typical pen uses gravity in order to work. In space, there is no gravity. The end of the story is that someone should send NASA a pencil.

Although this may be funny but it is not true. Pencils cannot be used in space. When you write with pencil, fine particles of graphite dust comes free from the lead. Due to the lack of gravity in space, this dust would then float around the cabin and becoming a health risk when it is inhaled by the astronauts.

Stylus was the first ever item that is used as a pencil. Used in ancient Rome, a stylus was a thin metal stick that was used to scratch on papyrus. The stylus was often made of lead. That is why many people still believe that pencils are made of lead. Pencils are not made of lead they are made from graphite mixed with clay. Graphite is a form of carbon. It is a non-toxic substance found underground.

Some time before 1564, what is known as England today an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered. This deposit was extremely pure and solid allowing it to be sawed into sticks to be used. The locals found this graphite to be very useful to mark sheep with. This particular graphite deposit remains the only large-scale deposit ever found. Chemistry was brand new then and the substance was thought to be a form of lead. It was consequently called plumbago, which is Latin for acts like lead. The core of pencils is still called lead even though it does not contain any of the elements.

Plumbago was soon considered valuable because it could be used to line the molds for cannon balls. The mines were then taken over by the Crown and guards were place around them. Graphite then had to be smuggled out to make pencils. Plumbago was wrapped in string or sheepskin at first because it is too soft to be easily held. These string and sheepskin wrapped graphite sticks were the first ever pencils. Soon the news of the usefulness of these sticks was known far and wide. This news attracted artists from all over the world.

The Italians were the first to use wooden holders for the graphite. They hollowed out a stick of Juniper wood and placed the graphite inside.

Although deposits of graphite were found in other parts of the world but they were not as pure in quality as the graphite found in England. The graphite from these other deposits had to be crushed to remove impurities. The first pencils made from graphite powder were in Nuremburg Germany in 1662. The mixture used graphite, sulfur and antimony. These pencils while usable were not as good as the ones made in England.

In 1795 a French chemist Nicolas Conte invented and patented the process that is used to make pencils today. A mixture of clay and graphite was placed in a kiln and fired before being put into a wooden case. The wooden case that he used was cylindrical with a slot. The graphite lead was glued into the slot and a small strip of wood was used to fill the rest of the slot. Contes way of kiln firing pencils allows them to be made in any hardness or softness needed. Adding more or less clay could vary the hardness of the graphite rod. The softer the graphite, the darker is the mark. This is very important to artists. These pencils got their name from an old English word meaning brush.

I hope you enjoy with me in this Mr. Pencil article. Please visit our website next week, we will publish new interesting  article from our Mr. Pencil.

Let your imagination have wings!!! LeapFrog  Leapster Learning Game – Mr. Pencil’s Learn to Draw and Write helps you to learn how to draw and write with the amazing guides having about one hundred and fifty systematic lessons, which help children to draw their favorite objects, animals, characters as well as writing the alphabets and numbers.  Mr. Pencil game also provides dozens of drawing and writing tools so that you could create and design everything you imagine.  Mr. Pencil teaches handwriting, creativity, drawing, and coloring.

Drawing lessons nurtures creativeness when children are provided the skills and tools to articulate their own ideas. Parents must give children bounty of opportunities to draw. The more kids draw, the more they will explore their imagination and creativeness. Drawing enhances the curriculum, providing children practice in handling tasks, observing details, and improving their observational skills.

For example — Drawing the flower lesson begins by gazing at a flower or a picture of a flower. The teacher helps the students observe and find the basic lines and shapes, teaching them to draw the figure they see. When kids finish drawing the flower, they are encouraged to design their own background.  Mr. Pencil suggests encouraging children to use their personal ideas in their backdrop drawing.

I suggests you to buy the Leapfrog products for your children, because it is a top developer, designer, and vendor of pioneering, technology-based instructive products and relevant proprietary content and educative toys and learning games. Leapfrog is 100% centralized on creating products that will present the most appealing, effective learning practice – for all ages from kids to adults, in school or at home, all around the world.  Leapfrog adjoins learning toys first with online expertise, along with the Leapfrog Learning Path. The Leapfrog Learning Path will let your child gain more and more skills to pencil down their imaginations. Your child will start spending his leisure time in the creative things. Passing the challenging levels will increase the child’s interest in it.

Mr. Pencil finds the Leapfrog game the best way to match up your child’s enthusiasm, and discover your kid’s favorite activities. The Leapfrog educational toy experience is presented by Leapfrog’s highly focused teams who bring together the three main elements that actually set Leapfrog products apart: an accurate and verified learning toy style, convincing multi-layered content, and delivered content and educational toy experience by the use of technology that is spontaneous, unseen and attractive. Leapfrogs learning Toys comprise, Zip pity, Leapster, My First Leap pad, DIDJ, TAG, TAG Jr.,and Puppy Pal ,learn and Groove.

Some outstanding features of Leapfrog learn to draw and write program:

• It contains more than 100 systematic lessons help you write, draw, and create!
• Tag along as you learn to write uppercase, lowercase letters, and numbers from 1-10.
• You can make creative games, an animated flipbook and color the pictures.
• Kids can draw their favorite cartoon characters, animals, shapes, as they learn about method of shading.
• This amazing toll teaches writing numbers and letters, drawing patterns, colors, forms and sequencing.

The game tags the price $24.00. Though some parents think that this was quite expensive for a child’s game but when you will see the game you will certainly change the mind. The graphics are excellent and the game is very understandable. It is appropriate for children over the age of 4.

You can select any games to play:

• Paint- it is same as the paint tool on standard computers. It has an option where you can blend colors to make different colors. This teaches your kids what colors to mix.
• Mazes- In this game you have to find your path out of a maze without touching the sides. If you find Mr. Pencil will come out asking you to start from the beginning again.
• Letter trace- This teaches your kids how to write every letter
• Animal trace- this is where you can trace out different animals and then draw on it, when you have completed you can rub out the trace lines to see how good you have done.

There are many of other games to choose from. Mr. Pencil and a paintbrush named Mrs. Paint lead your kid trough every game making it simple to understand.

So, to summarize, Leapfrog Mr. Pencil Learn to Draw and Write worth every cent you spent, because this game will help your children to learn to draw and write. If nothing else it worth buying, because it have same name as author of this article.

There are many styles of drawing, surrealism, and contemporary. However, the most untainted of all art is the imitation of realistic image. Realism is the replica of something that is the same image of what you glimpse; what is real.

Realistic drawing is the style of art that is difficult, but nowhere near as complex as most of the people imagine.  There is in fact very little discrepancy between cartoons and realistic drawings.  The only most important differences are the color values and the shading.

To make cartoons the artist use excessively dark colors or bright, and are simply recreated using the colored pencils. Realistic drawings cannot be done simply using the colored pencil, as generally it may never create a “real-life” look with colored pencils.  However, paints and pastels can easily create the values needed for every-day colors.  These colors should be merged more to give a great realistic effect to the cartoon character.
Picture of any style can seem unexpectedly realistic with the accurate shading.  Just have a look at most computer-animated movies today, and you will notice many obvious instances of realistic drawings done with tremendous proportions or exceptional characters.  It is actually the apposite shading that makes the art look more and more realistic.

When you are up to make a realistic sketch, you should keep the following things in mind:

Learning to make realistic drawing, Mr. Pencil suggests that first is to begin to perceive objects all around us as simple shapes. The most important thing is to perceive the things from an artist’s point of view, and then comes the technical skills. The four basic shapes are, square, triangle, circle and rectangle.

Mr. Pencil recommends taking these basic shapes in a 3D mode and now the circle becomes a sphere or a ball, the square becomes a cube, the rectangle turns into a rectangular cube or a cylinder and the triangle turns into a pyramid. Therefore, as you start on drawing the bodies, animals, flowers, and faces of people, you actually should first draw out these basic shapes. It is easy to draw these shapes than trying to draw all of the multifarious details all at once.

For instance, if you are drawing a portrayal of a person, you first draw out the basic shapes. Once you have the shapes, you work on the shading. Shading is the magical power behind your realistic drawings. It is what makes your drawing to transform it from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. There are many types of shading methods available. One of these methods is crosshatching.
Crosshatching is technique of shading done using two or more sets of crisscross parallel lines. These graded markings specify light and shaded areas in your drawings or paintings.

As per the opinion of Mr. Pencil, it takes a great amount of practice and time if you want to learn the basics of drawing, your skills will show in your quality of realistic drawings. For practice, first make a column of about five blocks. Then using a 2B pencil, make the end block as dark as possible on its right. Keep that block white on the other end. In between, you shade it in a graduation from dark to light.

Notice that as you increase the lightness of the value, you lighten up on the pressure of the pencil .Begin by making a linear crosshatch. Make your lines as dense as possible. Do not try to rush go slow. Lines could be crosshatched in four directions, two diagonals vertical, and horizontal, use just two different directions for light tones. You should use all four directions for darker tones.

You can try it by spacing the lines closer or far part .You may also change the pencils to a 6B or 2B to see how diverse your results might be. Your pencils must be sharpened. You will also get unusual results if your pencils are dull. Your hand should be able to draw precise and accurate. This takes practice and time.

It can be fun and profitable to create realistic drawings and illustrations. Crosshatching, and shading, are just two main elements of making the realistic drawings. Mr. Pencil suggests that the key to getting high quality is practice and more practice.

How are these smencils made?

Standard pencils are prepared from wood. Smencils are prepared using the rolled newspaper. The used newspapers are waterlogged in environment friendly scents and then enfolded firmly around the regular graphite pencil. The metal gizmo that holds the eraser named as ferrules are eco-friendly and recyclable and the erasers too are biodegradable. These conditions of course, apply only to the regular lead packs, as the colored lead packs do not contain erasers. The Smencil plastic tubes are also environmental friendly and recyclable, so Mr. Pencil recommand to buy and use those special pencils.

Smencils smell excellent when sharpened

For the reason that Smencils are made from recycled newspaper, the layers of the newspapers are easily visible when you sharpen them. In view of the fact that every layer has been individually encrusted in fragrance, even the shredding smells lovely! You can sharpen the smencil just like any other ordinary pencil.

Yes, they write just like a regular pencil!

People often worry that whether the smencil will work like the regular pencils or not. Mr.Pencil wants to tell all of them that a smencil writes exactly like the other regular pencils.

Available with colored lead or regular lead

Smencils are presented in two different modes: colored lead or regular lead. Every pack has the same ten fragrances. The variation is just that the standard lead pack uses normal gray lead and the smencils (pencils) includes the attached erasers. The packs with the colored lead smencils do not have erasers with them and the “color” of the scent matches with the color of the lead.

Colored Smencil packs contain the similar scents as their normal lead counterparts. Every colored Smencil go with the “color” of its scent. Therefore, the color of root beer scented lead is brown, color for the grape scent is purple, color for watermelon scent is green, color of very berry scent is blue, color for tropical blast fragrance is yellow, color for bubble gum is pink, color for cotton candy is blue, color for orange fragrance is obviously orange.

Every 10-pack of Smencils is presented in a zippered pouch

Fling your Smencils in your school bag or keep them arranged and tidy in a toy storage bin with the handy plastic carrying pouch. Every 10-pack of Smencils both colored and regular will get there in a zippered pouch.

Smencils fundraising

Smencils are one of the superlative fundraising ideas existing today! Eco-friendly, lofty profits, easy to sell.

Many of groups will put up Smencils for sale in addition to another fundraiser they are doing. For instance, a few Girl Scout group will purchase a couple of buckets of Smencils to vend while they are advertising Girl Scout cookies. They are low-priced and present a great option to buying unhealthful cookies.

Fundraising faction like schools and churches, which have the benefit of having admittance to a church or a shop school store, can set the Smencils in the store to vend as a full yearlong fundraiser. This is the most lenient method to sell Smencils as they pretty much vend themselves. You must be sure that the store keeps trail of the Smencil sales so that you know how much money you are getting.

Several art club teachers will purchase a bucket of Smencils and keep them available during art class. In that way if anyone needs a smencil they can purchase them in class which helps raise funds for the art club.

Soft sketch pencils
On the other hand, soft sketch pencils are designated the character capital B. These sketch pencils also vary their degree of softness. The degree of softness varies like 0B, 1B, 2B and so on. As the number goes higher, the pencil goes softer. Let’s say like a 10B pencil has very soft graphite compared to a 5B sketch pencil. Such sketch pencils are best used for shading since the shades produced are of great quality as required in sketches usually. One can take up a soft pencil from Mr Pencil and work their way up the list since the softer the pencil you choose, the darker the line you get. The reason for this is quite simple if you think a bit. Mr Pencil suggested that when you press on a softer graphite pencil, it breaks away more easily than does in a harder sketch pencil getting you a thicker sketch.

So how would you sketch a figure with these varying types of sketch pencils? As per Mr Pencil, here is a way that best suits all. You can first start the outlining of your sketch using an H pencil since the basics are important and if you get something wrong, the markings are light since you used a hard sketch pencil and it’s easy to undo it. Just try to get a picture of your sketch in this stage, do not hard on the pencil since it only wastes your energy. You use a hard pencil to get a light sketch so that you get the right frame and then proceed with darkening with the image dimensions. After this, you have a sketch outline. You can start with your darkening of the sketch. Use soft pencils of higher number when you need dark shadings or sketch patterns. You can optionally blend the pencil markings too by nudging the graphite on the paper sketch using a finger to get a smooth uniform shade.

Mr Pencil also suggested to experiment with the variants of pencils so that you will figure out which ones to use and in which situation or for which pattern of the sketch. Trying this will finally leave you with one final pencil that you may feel is best for all purposes or maybe you will have a set of 2-3 sketch pencils just for your sketches every time. Depends on your style, but the final choice will be yours on which sketch pencils suit you and your sketching style.

Mr. Pencil provides all the necessary information to the viewers of the site. Right from the types of pencils to the different styles of pencil arts, along with the art of sharpening the pencils and much more. There are numerous types of pencils, from colored pencil to shading pencil, from graphite, to charcoal pencil. All of them have different uses and show different tones and shades as well as texture.
It is important for every artist to know which kind of pencil he/she needs for each stroke, sketch or each line. Mr. Pencil will certainly help you selecting the right pencil for your every texture.

For an artist the tools are everything, and a comprehensive understanding of them is requisite. Here are some of the most commonly used pencils, their descriptions and what are they used for.

Traditional Pencils

A high-quality pencil is an artist’s greatest friend. No topic is beyond an artist’s depiction if they have the exact pencils they need. An excellent rule of thumb to keep in mind what each pencil does is to know that the softer the lead of the pencil is, the darker your line would be. Pencils having ‘B’ in their name are soft. Pencils having ‘H’ in the name have the harder leads.

Following list will help you out determining what kind of pencils you require for special techniques:

2H- It is a pencil with a very hard lead that makes very light marks. It is excellent for drawing minutiae and preface drawings that you might not want to be permanent.

6B- This pencil creates dark but softer marks. The 6B is a wide woodless pencil that is best for significant sketching and drawing.

HB- It is the most commonly used pencil. All of us know this name from our school days. Most of us even started writing or drawing using this beauty to scribble on our notebooks. Its lead comes in a category between hard and soft and makes a great multifaceted pencil. Mr. Pencil suggests keeping this one with your sketchbook every time.
Jumbo- Mr. Pencil remembers these giant sized pencils from pre-school playgroup. They contain all of the benefits of a regular HB pencils, but they possess a very broad lead that is just right for animated drawings and broad lines.

2B- These pencils have softer lead than the HB but makes darker lines. 2B is best for outlining the drawings.

Colored Pencils

Colored pencils are pigment and wax in a wooden covering. Colored pencils are a first-rate choice for artists who wish their drawings to be multicolored and can be used in a combination with lead pencils.

Mr. Pencil now welcomes to the world of sharpening pencil – this may seems to be a dull topic but there is in fact there is a lot more in this topic than you think. There are many different sharpening methods and styles; all fine artists must know them. One must know using the right one at the right time.

Sharpening styles

There are four major points to choose from; the one you select will depend on the kind of pencil you use, and the chic of your drawing.

Standard style

Everybody knows about this style, the conical point is the most widespread and the most adaptable of pencil sharpening styles. If you are seeking for a good all purpose sharpened pencil then this is the best.

The chisel point

This is a hardly ever seen style of pencil sharpening where the end of the pencil is cut with a blade or a knife into the shape of a chisel. It is mainly used to draw two types of marks on the paper, wider lines from the flat faces and thin dark lines from the sharp edge.

The needlepoint

This is a professional design that is made with a knife into a sharp curved in point. This style is ideal for perfectionists who want defined control over their super fine details.