I have to say I’m PRETTY EXCITED about the fact that you all pulled through for me in a BIG way with this little poll I did! 😀 😀 😀 I needed your help with my research—and you didn’t hesitate ❤ I got the 100+ participants I was hoping for, so I consider this a success  😎

Before I get into the results of the poll, I’m itching to announce the three winners of my “thank you” giveaway, and here they are!…

 

Winner of 1st copy of Zentangle for Kids:

JP Roberts!

Winner of 2nd copy of Zentangle for Kids:

Naoko!

Winner of a “Writer Side UP!” notebook:

Emily Wayne!

Though only three people could win giveaway prizes, in my book, you’re ALL winners 😀 Thank you so much!

I know many of you were curious, not only about the results, but why I was asking these questions. Basically, I needed to know if there was a call for certain type tools, and if so—or not—why. It was important to know before I spent a significant amount of precious time and money on something that may be of little or no value, so your answers have helped me tremendously. If I could hug everyone of you—I would! ❤ Of course, I also LOVE hearing about artists’ processes and all things related, so this was enjoyable for me (and I hope you) on that level, too 😀

And now for the results! I took the “Polldaddy” graphs, embellished them for my purposes and have posted them here to share with you. The percentages are close to 100% accurate because most of the “Other” responses were extensions of multiple choice questions (which I really appreciated—SO helpful!) and I had to do a bit of recalculating. Still, I think we’ve got a pretty clear representation of the stats overall 🙂 So here we go!…

 

“Other” was predominantly “yes” artists explaining that they use both wood-encased and mechanical pencils, as do I. It is largely dependent on what task is at hand as to which tool is used. A few participants do everything digitally.

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Because my question was “monthly,” these numbers largely reflect that many artists buy in bulk, sporadically, or barely use pencils. It’s sort of all over the board and difficult to really get a clear picture doing it this way.

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I found this a very beneficial question. Nearly half the artists polled aren’t particular about the pencils they use. Of the ones whom are, I learned which brands are the most popular, but also gained knowledge about a few I’d never heard of. For your information, this is how it broke down:

WOODEN:

  1 – Bic

  1 – Blick

  1 – CraZeeArt

  1 – Cretacolor Nero

  1 – Daler Rowney

  5 – Derwent

  1 – Eberhardt Faber

  1 – Faber Castell

  2 – Koh-I-Noor/Toison D’or

  1 – Mitsubishi

  3 – Palomino

11 – Prismacolor

  2 – Prismacolor Col-Erase

  1 – Sanford Colorific

  4 – Staedtler

  1 – Staples

  3 – Ticonderoga

  1 – Tombow

  1 – Wasserlack

MECHANICAL:

  1 – Papermate

  1 – Pentel

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“Other” was a balanced mix of using the “old school” crank type (which slipped my mind), an X-Acto knife or utility blade, and those who use mechanical pencils.

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“Other” answers mentioned the use of pencil extenders for the “1 inch or less” category.

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For “Other” there was quite the variety of comments, from collecting them to using them for other purposes (curious) to never getting the pencils short, but my favorite answer was:

“It leaves me and goes to a magical fairy land in my home.”

😀

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Most “Other” responses were that they don’t use charcoals or pastels, or haven’t in years.

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A very large portion of “Others” was that the artists never used a pencil extender. Second to that was not knowing they existed. I hadn’t either!

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As you can see, this was relatively balanced overall, the “Other” being that the artist wouldn’t use one, didn’t know if they’d use one, have yet to try one, don’t run out of pencils to try one or the pencils “disappear” before they get small enough. The latter has had me guessing throughout the poll because it came up quite a few times! I can only imagine that when they roll off the desk, they end up in a place they can’t be retrieved or seen so they’ve pretty much gone to that “fairy land” that was mentioned 😉

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I thought to ask this question later on, so about half the participants answered, but I still think it’s reflective of the whole group—and I’m SO grateful to the group! You guys have been great. The “Other” was an artist for pleasure but has been paid.

 

I learned a lot of valuable information from this poll and I hope you found it interesting, too. Probably the most astonishing thing I learned doing this research, aside from this poll, is that approximately 15-20 billion (yes, I said “billion”) pencils are produced annually worldwide. The U.S. is responsible for about 3.5 billion of those. Amazing, right? One thing I learned was I highly doubt I’ll ever do another poll! lol I’m not exactly a “stats” person, but for times like this, they sure do come in handy 😀