For many years I have been convinced that the non-photo (or non-repro) pencil is a modern miracle of the industrial complex, and my view has not changed. It looks like an ordinary light-blue pencil, but it is not an ordinary light-blue pencil. I suspect that the exact pigmentation of the non-photo blue pencil is the product of 18th Century skirmishes between the Staedtler and Faber families in the hills and valleys of Stein, Germany. I have no proof of this; call it an educated suspicion.
I have been sketching since childhood. When my beloved calling becomes an onerous agitation of complaints, leverage, and well-intended but unmitigated shenanigans, I sketch. Of course, when my beloved calling is, beloved, I sketch then, as well. For me, the subject matter is most always cars and other industrial (i.e. non-organic) things, mostly cars. I photograph bits and pieces of cars in order to sketch. I travel inconvenient distances to photograph specimens of my favorite artists and later sketch them. I’m not very good at it, but there’s always the non-photo pencil.
Artists and illustrators use the non-photo pencil to sketch freely, finding the right line and the right shape through a process of loosely drawn attempts. Sketching ought to be liberating. When the proper line or shape is discovered (or presents itself), and when the horizon and light source are located, a normal graphite pencil is laid right over the top of the myriad non-photo blue hashes. When the sketch is finally scanned or photocopied, the non-photo blue...disappears. All that remains is that firm line of graphite grey. However, I know, and so do you, that line of graphite could not exist without hundreds and hundreds of non-photo blue attempts.
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” This phrase appears in Philippians 2.12-13. You knew this already, but let me ask you this: Do you hear these words as a warning to draw with a stark black pencil or an invitation to sketch with non-photo blue? There is probably no book in the Bible so full of memory verses as Philippians, which is a tragedy, as well as, a blessing. Memory verse theology can sometimes promote abbreviation; origami compression of a beautiful doctrine into a tiny little crane or tulip or frog. No thank you.
Remember that the letter to the Philippians is about encouragement. This scruffy collection of believers is not terribly unlike the scruffy collection here at Covenant (myself included). The next verse calls them grumblers and disputers. I imagine they are especially in need of a little encouragement to live lives marked by God’s grace. When God tells them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, He is not telling them to uncap the permanent marker and get sketching. How could this kind of art be evidence of the God of grace working in them for His own good pleasure? How can any sinner find that perfect line at the first go-round? How can any one of these Philippian converts take fresh paper in hand and fill it to the borders with luscious and permanent beauty, absent from any sketch lines? Not one of them worked out their sanctification in this way.
Jesus never (never) worked-up His perfect righteousness with the approximate and hasty lines of non-photo blue. He did not take comfort in, when He got it just right, inking down the right line and photocopying away the light blue perspective grids and placeholders. He lived, perfectly.
You need to know that my desire is to help you sketch your life in ways pleasing to our heavenly Father. Whether you agree with me or not, I believe you are working with an art box filled with thousands of non-photo blue pencils. I expect to see stray marks all over the page. There is a myth that only the Italian designers are able to find the perfect linea Italiana (Italian line). I believe my favorite artist, a short round man from Torino, found this line (I’m biased). He used non-photo blue pencils. Lots of them. In His grace, God allows us to sketch very imperfect lives. After all, in Jesus, all of the non-photo blue is gone, and only His perfection remains.
~ Pastor Jones
