Art Fun Cheap

Magic pencils are fat, colorful wooden pencils with multicolor lead, made by the pencil company, Koh-I-noor Hardtmuth and sold for 99 cents at most Walgreen’s stores. Michael’s may still carry them, too.

Each pencil has three colors arranged in the fat “lead” in a checkerboard pattern, so you can write a rainbow, and make multicolored backgrounds (but you cannot control the lead color as you can with the Marvy Color Tricks pencil).

I love to freehand a sort of herringbone pattern over a blank page. It’s very easy to do and makes a lovely background. Or I’ll put a cardboard shape or a brass stencil under a sketchbook or journal page and them rub over the page with a magic pencil for a beautiful pattern.

Magic pencils come in six color mixes:

Soft blue, wine, and yellow lead writes soft, blues, greens, yellows and mauves. The outside is softly marbled soft blue, purple, green.

Neon colors are in a pencil that is black with multicolored glitter on the outside.

Red, yellow, and orange lead writes flame colors. It is red-and-gold-marbled outside.

Red, yellow, and blue lead is the most widely available and most versatile. It is marbled yellow, red, blue, orange on the outside.

Sky blue, dark blue, and maroon writes in shades of blue and purple. It has a dark blue marbled outside.

Red, white and blue lead writes in shades of red, white, blue and purple. It is marbled red and white outside.

All six kinds make wonderful for backgrounds, and you can blend them with a paper towel for a more subtle effect.

Another company makes a cheaper knock-off of the Magic pencil. They are widely available at craft stores, and some Walgreen’s have started selling them. Except for one that is exactly like the main blue-yellow-red Magic pencil, the knock-offs are not nearly as pretty color combinations but are still well worth trying out, especially if you can’t find the real Magic pencils.

Besides Walgreen’s, Michael’s originally carried the Magic pencils, and Hobby Lobby carried both Magic and the cheaper brand last time I looked. At Hobby Lobby you can buy them in packages of several colors.

Walgreen’s sells the pencils individually and much cheaper than either of the others. Check different Walgreen’s in your area. A few no longer sell the pencils. Some have the real Magic. Some have only the red-blue-yellow. Others have all the kinds.