Pencil Tray

thingiverse

This simple tray keeps my color pencils in order and prevents them from rolling around my work table. It works with both my Polychromos and Prismacolor Premier pencils. The Polys are .5mm fatter than the Premires but both fit nicely. There are 3 styles. The 4 narrow will hold 4 pencils closer together requiring minimum table space. The 5 Wide holds 5 pencils a little wider apart and the 7 Wide holds up to 7 pencils. I typically have several of these in use when coloring a picture. Example: If coloring a sunflower I would have a tray with several yellows, another tray with several greens for the stem another with blacks and other darks for seeds and maybe another for background colors. I usually have another tray holding blenders, erasures, an X-acto knife, brushes and other odds and ends. I put a piece of self stick foam on the back (see picture 3). The foam is available at most art supply stores. Picture 4 & 5 show 2 methods to get to a pencil. You can push down on the back end of a pencil and the front comes up to grab. This requires 2 hands. The other method that I usually use is to slide the pencil back so the end protrudes and can be grabbed needing only 1 hand. The final picture shows that the loaded trays can be stacked to save space on your work table. You will need to use the self stick foam mentioned above to do this. I printed all my trays with PLA. It is a simple print with no supports, brims or rafts. The elongated holes in the bottom help conserve filament and helps prevent warping. I have black trays for light colored pencils and yellow trays for darker colors.