Erasing Solutions

This month, I want to discuss erasers.

Not a lot to discuss, you might say – and you could be right – but the reason it’s on my mind is because I recently invested in a new little tool that I’d never seen before. Granted, that doesn’t mean the gizmo is new; I’m a self-confessed dinosaur when it comes to art materials. Not only am I generally behind the times with regards to what’s available, but I’m also very stuck in my ways, and have barely changed my methods of doing things for over thirty years… so it’s unlikely that I’m going to change now.

I’ve never been overly fond of gum or kneaded (what I’ve also heard referred to as ‘putty’) erasers. While the general consenus is that they are a good thing when it comes to removing pencil lines from watercolour paper without causing any surface damage, I’ve always found them to be rather ineffectual and not terribly pleasant to use, preferring a good old stiff, vinyl plastic eraser with a little extra bite to it, and I can’t say I’ve ever suffered from damaged watercolour paper because of them.

One piece of technology that I have taken a liking to is the electric battery-powered eraser. If you haven’t used one, I recommend you go try one out. Not only are they rather fun to use, but for certain things, they can be a life-saver; they’re great for cleaning drawings up and creating highlights that would otherwise be awkward to achieve with a standard eraser. Blu-Tack is another surprisingly good method of lifting out subtle shapes from a shaded-in area (note I said ‘subtle’, since Blu-Tack is very gentle in its lifting properties).

My reason for writing about erasers now is because I saw someone using something on a YouTube demonstration recently that I hadn’t seen before, and I wanted to give it a big shout-out. It’s a Tombow Mono Zero Eraser, which as far as I understand it, falls under the category of ‘Pencil Eraser’ – ie. looking like a pencil, but with a vinyl eraser tip. The reason I was enamoured by it, and immediately went online to order myself one, is because it seems so utterly practical, and such a ridiculously simple idea, akin to the small erasers you often find attached to the end of some pencils (which are usually rubber, not vinyl)… only smaller, with as fine a nib as you want (they come in different sizes)… and mounted in a plastic, pencil-like housing.

All of which goes to prove (to me at least) that despite the massive selection of fancy art gear inventions and wonderful designs available in art outlets, many of them pale into insignificance when faced with something so relatively understated and simple, yet extremely practical.

The Tombow Mono Zero Eraser… I love it!