Pencil Lead Carving

Graphite Carving by Dalton Ghetti

I am planning on doing pencil lead carving as my first assignment. I think might get them ready for wax carving. I have a box of straight pins and I bought 15 lbs of electrodes, and 50 carpenter pencils.

I plan on having the students flatten, grind, shape and sharpen the electrodes into tools. This will teach them how to make custom tools, and it is cheap. You can make them into great modeling tools. The 2D teacher sharpens them and uses them for carving Plexi-glass for print making, and for ceramic work.

I bought 50 of the large carpenter pencils for $0.28 each at Lowes. I probably could have gotten them for less, but I did not shop around, and I plan on cutting them into four pieces. Then the students will carve the leads.

I am hoping that this will help them develop a little finesse before they start carving their waxes, so they can do greater detail with fewer broken waxes. I also hope it helps them see that breaking their work is not the end.

Here is the link to the examples. Ghetti's work