Winnie the Pooh’s Pencil Case.

I thought you, lover of pencil boxes and their collection of tools and other oddments, might enjoy this. I know I did!

An extract from A A Milne’s Christopher Robin Gives Pooh a Party.

“When Pooh saw what it was, he nearly fell down, he was so pleased. It was a Special Pencil Case. There were pencils in it marked “B” for Bear, and pencils marked “HB “ for Helping Bear, and pencils marked “BB” for Brave Bear. There was a knife for sharpening the pencils, and indiarubber for rubbing out anything which you had spelt wrong, and a ruler for ruling lines for the words to walk on, and inches marked on the ruler in case you wanted to know how many inches anything was, and Blue Pencils and Red Pencils and Green Pencils for saying special things in blue and red and green. And all these lovely things were in little pockets of their own in a Special Case which shut with a click when you clicked it. And they were all for Pooh.

“Oh!” said Pooh.

“Oh, Pooh!” said everybody else except Eeyore.

“Thank-you,” growled Pooh.

But Eeyore was saying to himself, “This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.” “

And here’s Pooh enjoying his Special pencil Case in one of E H Shepard’s heartwarming illustrations.

If you’re Pooh Bear-crazy like me, walk over to Blossoms, Bangalore and pick up an armful of secondhand baby books of Winnie the Pooh short stories, in the kids’ book pile out on Church Street. The illustration above is a scan from one of these books, previously owned by a kid named Starlet who’s scrawled her name in green marker inside the book.  =)

Supreeth’s Pencil Box

In the past I’ve tried getting myself those fancy metal pencil boxes, ultimately it’s any old box that you find that really sticks.

I found my cardboard box at work and it became my pencil holder. That was more than a year ago. This little fella is still alive and kicking, though a bit frayed and all. My pencil box is pretty much the same size as my sketchbook. I sometimes rubberband them together and when I don’t want to carry my pencil box, I stick my pen in the plastic book spiral.

Prabha’s Pencil Box

I emptied mine out and here’s what I’ve found. Pencil scrapings, eraser dust, scraps of hair and other unmentionables not included.

The Box has evolved. It really has. I picked it up  at Primary Art Supply, Savannah, GA (the absolute HUB of art supply (I won’t call it stationery. There’s a difference!) for us in art school at SCAD. I’ve never seen an awesomer, more well organised store. It has EVERYTHING. Drop by there sometime and see for yourself.)

The Box was then pristine, clean and smelt of freshly scraped balsa wood.  It got gradually decorated with inky fingerprints, tea-stains and an over-friendly vampire who took permanent residence on its lid.  Though the Box started out with the noble purpose of holding my coloured pencils, I discovered it was large enough to hold: my hyper-tall, smutty acrylic brushes, three large sooty erasers, a miscellaneous bunch of pencils of assorted Hs and Bs, nib holders, a whole box of nibs, and even a pen-drive (jump-drive 1GB in size: now peanuts, once a big deal. And it took quite an expedition of biking all over Bangalore with my friend VV to acquire it.) It has the almighty ink dropper that cost 50 paise (it  is now broken after 4 long years).  It also bears an ingenious fish-bone thingamajig that’s supposed to wrap up my iPod’s intestines very securely (which Indro scoured dozens of electronics stores to find. He probably asked for “the Fish” and was met with a blank stare.) Its got a bandaid to save me from bleeding to death when my dear old yellow cutter stabs me while sharpening pencils. Cram, cram, cram.

The Box has been part of almost all of my drawing expeditions. It has welcomed watercolour paintbrushes into its hallowed walls when my professors were horrified by my reedy acrylic brushes. It has even witnessed Death, with the cruel crushing of a cherished nib among a horde of quarrelsome pencils. It has been anointed with my Lunch Lady’s overzealous cauliflower sabji. Its lid is an impromptu resting spot for tea cups, ink bottles, elbows, wet brushes. Its edges are an emergency ruler. It has witnessed cross-Atlantic travel with no major accident to Itself or its content.

What can I say, the Box rules.