“How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening” (Melville House, $19.95), by David Rees, is not your average book about pencil sharpening. In ...

David Rees thinks he knows how to sharpen pencils. He says people have entrusted 1,500 pencil points to his sharpening business. I know a little something about working with sharp pencils, and let me ...

In the barroom outside the shotgun performance hall at Pete's Candy Store, a woman's singing threatened to drown out a free lecture on artisanal pencil sharpening. "They're making an acetate record ...

I got a peek inside David Rees’s pencil-sharpening kit last week at his appearance in Williamsburg, sponsored by the bookstore Word, at Public Assembly. It was the last stop on his book tour (“How to ...

Love charcoal but hate the mess? Pick up a charcoal pencil, which is composed of compressed charcoal inside a protective layer, typically wood. Suitable for drawing, sketching, or smudging, a charcoal ...