The Pencil Set That Brought Me Back to Drawing After Twenty Years

I used to draw every day. Through school, through university, through my twenties — a sketchbook was always within reach, always being filled. Portraits, landscapes, still lifes, the view from whatever window I happened to be sitting near. Drawing was how I processed the world. It was as natural and necessary as reading.

Then I had children, changed jobs, moved house twice, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, the sketchbooks went into a drawer and stayed there. Not a conscious decision. Just the slow accumulation of busyness until one day I realised I hadn't drawn anything in — I had to think about it — nearly twenty years.

Twenty years. I found that genuinely shocking when I worked it out.

The Moment I Decided to Start Again

My youngest daughter, Ellie, is seventeen and doing her A-level Art. She'd been working at the kitchen table one evening, sketching with a set of graphite pencils, and I sat down next to her and picked one up. Just to feel it. Just to remember.

I drew a quick study of the fruit bowl on the table. Nothing ambitious — five minutes, rough lines, a bit of shading. Ellie looked over and said, "Mum, that's really good. Why don't you draw anymore?"

I didn't have a good answer. So I decided to find one — or rather, to stop needing one.

I needed my own pencils. Not borrowed ones, not the dried-up remnants of a set I'd had in my twenties. A proper set, chosen deliberately, that would sit on my desk and remind me every morning that I'd made a commitment to start again.

Why I Chose the Earth Tone Graphite Pencils

I found the Earth Tone Graphite Pencils Acid-Free Art Set on ALTOE while browsing the arts and crafts section one evening, and several things about them felt exactly right.

The acid-free composition was the first thing that caught my attention. Archival-safe materials that prevent yellowing or degradation over time — this matters to me. I want the work I do to last. Sketchbooks are a record of how you see the world at a particular moment, and the idea that the marks I make now will still be clear and true in twenty years feels important. Cheap pencils on cheap paper fade and yellow. These won't.

The six-count set felt like exactly the right scope for a return. Not an overwhelming professional set of twenty-four grades that would require research and decision-making before I'd even started. Six pencils, a curated variety for sketching and detailing, enough range to work with tone and texture without the paralysis of too much choice. For someone coming back to drawing after a long absence, that simplicity was genuinely appealing.

The slim, compact packaging — designed to fit in a desk drawer or art kit without taking over the space — suited my intention perfectly. I wanted these pencils on my desk, visible, accessible, not stored away in a box that required effort to open. The slim profile meant they'd sit neatly in the shallow drawer of my writing desk, ready whenever I had twenty minutes.

I ordered them that evening.

The First Morning

The pencils arrived two days later. I opened the packaging at my desk, laid them out, picked up the one that felt right in my hand, and opened a new sketchbook I'd bought in anticipation.

I drew for forty minutes. I hadn't planned to draw for forty minutes — I'd told myself I'd do ten, just to start, just to see. But forty minutes passed without my noticing, and when I looked up the morning light had shifted and my coffee had gone cold and I had three pages of studies of the garden through the window.

They weren't brilliant. They were rusty and uncertain in places, the hand remembering things the eye had forgotten. But they were mine, and they were made with pencils that felt good — responsive, precise, the right weight and texture against the paper. The quality of the tool matters more than people who don't draw tend to realise. A pencil that performs well makes you want to keep going. These did.

Four Months On

I draw every morning now. Not always for long — sometimes ten minutes, sometimes an hour, depending on what the day allows. But every morning, before anything else, I sit at my desk with the Earth Tone pencils and a sketchbook and I draw something. The view from the window. A cup. My hands. Whatever is in front of me.

I have filled two sketchbooks since I started. The third is half full. Ellie has started sitting with me on weekend mornings, both of us drawing in companionable silence, which is one of the most unexpectedly lovely things that has happened to me in recent years.

The pencils themselves have held up beautifully. The graphite is consistent — no hard spots, no crumbling, no variation in quality between pencils. The acid-free composition means I have no concerns about the longevity of the work. These sketchbooks will still be clear and true in twenty years. That matters to me more than I can easily explain.

What Drawing Has Given Back to Me

I didn't expect this to be as significant as it has been. I thought I was buying a pencil set. What I was actually doing, I understand now, was reclaiming something I'd let go of without meaning to — a way of being present, of looking carefully, of making something with my hands that exists only because I made it.

Drawing slows me down in a way that nothing else does. For forty minutes every morning, I am not thinking about work or the week ahead or the things I haven't done. I am looking at a cup, or a branch, or the way light falls across a wall, and I am trying to put it on paper. That quality of attention is, I've come to believe, genuinely good for me. It's the closest thing I have to meditation, and it costs nothing but time and a set of pencils.

What I Love Most About Them

• The acid-free, archival-safe composition: The work I make with these pencils will last. That's not a small thing when you're drawing to remember.
• The graphite quality: Consistent, responsive, and precise. No hard spots, no crumbling, no variation. Every pencil performs the same way.
• The six-count curation: Enough variety for real tonal range without overwhelming a returning artist. The right scope for a fresh start.
• The slim packaging: Lives in my desk drawer, always visible, always accessible. The best creative tools are the ones you actually reach for.
• What they represent: A decision to start again. Sometimes the right tool at the right moment is all the permission you need.

Who Are These For?

Anyone who draws, or used to draw, or has always wanted to draw and never quite started. Anyone who scrapbooks and wants pencils that will keep their work looking beautiful for years. Anyone who is looking for a creative practice that is quiet, portable, inexpensive, and genuinely good for the soul. And anyone who, like me, has a sketchbook in a drawer somewhere and a nagging feeling that they should open it.

Get Yours

The Earth Tone Graphite Pencils Acid-Free Art Set is available now at ALTOE. Open the sketchbook. Start again. It's not too late — I promise.

Explore more in these collections:

• Art & Crafting Materials – quality materials for every creative project.
• Arts & Crafts – the full range of arts and crafts supplies at ALTOE.
• Hobbies & Creative Arts – everything you need to pursue the creative hobbies that matter to you.
• Arts & Entertainment – the full ALTOE arts and entertainment range.
• Latest Products – see what's just arrived at ALTOE.

— Vivienne Ashby-Thornton, former daily drawer, twenty-year lapse, now drawing every morning again. Fills roughly one sketchbook every six weeks. Based in Oxford.