I ordered through e-bay (highly recommended way of buying) a roll-up pencil case. (I just bought one in an art shop in Hay-on-Wye, about £6.75, empty, to hold and sort handbags and pencils and provide quick visual access to the pencil I'm seeking.) The case I ordered on line was a pretty blue, which I prefer to the brown ones by Derwent, and the cream one I just bought in the Hay art shop. Different colour cases make it easier for me to find the case with different contents, such as pencils to do the basic portrait outline sketch, watercolour pencils for colouring the portrait's hair, clothes, and eyes, a third set of pink and brown colours for face complexion shades ranging from Caucasian pinks through all the shades of brown, plus lips. The pencil case holder set I bought on line has assorted pencils included. The set cost only 99 p but the postage was $23. I was shocked at the postage, but when the item arrived, including the contents, I reckoned it was a great deal and hoped the seller had made sufficient profit from the combination of low bid selling price and higher postage.
However, the items were a mystery. Three white stumpy items, half the length of pencils, with rounded ends, stumpier and fatter than pencils. Larger girth.
My first thought was that they were erasers. No. Too solid.
White tips. So can't write on white paper.
Were they for writing on black paper? No, too hard - would scrape paper.
Back to my records of orders - ebay is so handy. Everything I've bought for the past three years is listed. So I could answer an admirer's question, 'Where did you get that hat!' I could re-or order another of the same item in a different colour, if the seller is an online shop, not just an individual selling odd secondhand items.
I checked the seller's specification list. I discovered my pencil holder is designed to be worm around your waist, as if you are standing at an easel.
Back to my original question. What are those white objects? The captions did not run left to right matching the pencils in the case shown in the illustration. However, by process of elimination, I found the words 'paper pencils'.
Usually an internet search reveals all. This time nothing. Lots of sites selling paper and pencils. (Obviously I needed to to specify the combination of the two words. Finding whole phrases is another challenge - which I must add to the revision of the draft of my forthcoming book (of which I have a 'dry run' of 50 copies, available from me, not yet through Lulu.com). Wikipedia and dictionaries don't explain paper pencils.
The sellers of 'paper pencils' don't explain them. But I spot the magic words 'ecologically friendly'. Ah. Light bulb moment.
I wondered, are they paper outside? If so, if they are pencils, where is the part you write with?Are they like other pencils in the set? Do I need to sharpen the tips? Is there a lead centre inside?
They are too stumpy to fit inside the average tiny one hole pencil sharpener. I need to find a big sharpener or use a penknife. But I don't want to damage the pencils.
I've already written to the seller.
The solution - they are for rubbing and spreading or eliminating charcoal or loose, not fixed, coloured paints which can be spread thinly, made into a background or made paler, or spread further. Ah!
