koukla carolyn

Design Kneaded Rubber Eraser (my favorite art supply), marker in 5×7 sketchbook, Carolyn A Pappas, 2008

The note reads: “I was five years old when I got my first kneaded eraser. I remember sitting in the back seat of the car on the way to my first art lesson, squeezing and squishing it while it was still in its package. It’s been good luck for me ever since.”

I have always kept my kneaded eraser with me over the years. Nowadays I keep it in a ziplock bag so little bits of dust and lint don’t get stuck in it when I carry it in my purse. My first art teacher always told me that I was to draw with my right hand and play with the eraser with my left hand. I don’t know if anyone else out there does something similar but that has always been my habit. When I was recovering from my hand condition that left me largely unable to draw for a year, I tested myself by squeezing my eraser and imagining the day that I would be using as it was intended. In fact when I finally got back into drawing, I was so out of practice that I used it quite frequently!

The benefits of this type of eraser is that lasts for a long time. After dirtying part of the eraser, all you have to do is squish up a bit so as to reveal a clean surface. It is gentle with the tooth of the paper, allowing for repeated erasings in the same spot and there are not as many eraser bits as with other types of erasers. Also, you can mold the eraser into different shapes to allow you to erase in tight spaces. It can be used to lift out highlights from graphite or charcoal and it’s easy to get soft edges by going over the paper very lightly with the eraser. Some art instructors insist on not letting their students use erasers because it makes them want to erase every mark they put on the paper. That is probably a good practice at least once in awhile for training purposes but I do love my eraser and would keep it around even if I were only playing with it.

Organic Root Beer Bottle, neocolor II crayons in watercolor sketchbook, 2008

Daisies, black pitt pens in sketchbook, 2008

This weekend I ended up being very productive, but not in terms of art. It seems like I did all kinds of things except doing artwork. Today I cooked an unbelievable quantity of food (scones, macaroni and cheese and a big batch of oatmeal), went shopping and cleaned my bathroom. I put drawing off until the very end and now I am do tired I don’t think I can do much more. For some reason my right arm has been aching for the past two days. Yesterday I was feeling sort of fearful to do any drawing for fear of making it worse but today I did a lot of manual labor and my arm doesn’t feel worse for the wear. I think that I have just been trying to avoid things that have been bothering me lately, sort of like my TMS days.