Pencil Art: 8 Simple Illustrations Made With Pencil Shavings

I’m one of those people who prefers to write with a pencil or crayon more than a pen. I’m not talking about those fancy mechanical pencils either. I like the old-fashioned wooden pencils that you sharpen with the little sharpeners we all used to have when we were kids. If you’ve sharpened a pencil with one of those recently, what did you do with the shavings? You threw them in the garbage can, right? Believe it or not, some people take those pencil shavings and create pencil art with them. It’s truly fabulous really, and it always makes me smile.

Richard spotted some pencil art similar to this about a year ago, and he wrote about it in Beautiful Pencil Shaving Portraits. The pencil art I’d like to share with you today is more simplistic. It’s almost what I’d call minimalist pencil shaving art. However, don’t mistake that for this being easy. If you look at the detail in these, you’ll see that there is more thought put into this pencil art than you might see at first glance.

This collection was created by an illustrator named Marta Altes. Each one of these illustrations incorporates the pencil shavings in such a creative way, and the expression in each one makes me feel happy. Aside from these drawings, have you ever stopped to notice how pretty pencil shavings are just by themselves? If you use wooden pencils often, you can take a glass from your kitchen and keep it close to your work area. Each time you sharpen your pencil, try to do it in one long strip, and then drop that pencil shaving into the glass. When you get a bunch in there, you’ll appreciate how pretty it is. I suppose this is yet another example of how one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. I hope you enjoy this pencil art as much as I did!