Who in their right mind doesn’t love a bundt cake, much less a bundt pan? It’s that “dt” at the end that makes it all so satisfying. This pan was found at Bought and Sold, a seductive little antique shop (a branch of Lee Hartwell Antiques) in Callicoon, NY. The patina on this piece is more gray-black than what appears in the photo. It has a fragile quality about it that is irresistible.
I literally gasped when I saw these lithographed renderings from A.W. Faber’s late 19th century catalog of pencils and other office supplies. The pamphlet cover states that Faber has factories in France and Germany and “houses” in London, Paris and Berlin. But the company address is at 78 Reade Street, right here in NYC. I applaud the University of Houston libraries: another superb digital archive. I came to this collection first via Tom Lynch’s blog Went Sketching. One of his posts then led me to the over-the-top obsessed German pencil-centric blog Lexikaliker. I love the interwebs.
Old art supplies being dragged out from retirement. These are Blending Stumps and Tortillions, used to smear and blend graphite, pastel and charcoal. The stumps and tortillions are both made from rolled felt paper. The stumps are double-ended and the tortillions are single ended. I never noticed until now, but it looks to me as though they are mostly made in China.
I’m thinking about making a really large painting or drawing of these. Hey, why not?
1
