Somehow in the course of my life I have lost more erasers than I thought possible. Once again I found myself sans my hard eraser, and my kneaded eraser had become seriously nasty over the vestiges of time (and pencil trimmings). How terrible. I had to go to the art store. Woe is me.

In all seriousness, though, going to art stores is my happy place. It’s my shoe shopping, it’s my dress trying on. It’s freaking delicious.

So of course I bought on-sale brushes, a new notebook, fresh fancy ink to try, and oh yeah also erasers.

I also bought a smudge stick.

Crazy as it is, I’ve never really used a smudge stick before. They’ve been around, and I sort of understand their point, but smudge sticks are not a tool I keep in my box. So I figured it was time to give it a solid try by doodling out some concept sketches for a short story I wrote and using the smudge stick very sparingly to give it that ‘field notes’ look I was going for.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the thing. But more tools in my box is never a bad thing!