I found this gem about thinking with a pencil from Alexander Gerner's blog Gerner says that he is an artist & member of the CFCUL (Centre of Philosophy of Science of the University of Lisbon) where they, along with the Max Planck Institute of the History of Science are looking into the roles that writing and drawing play in the Sciences. (I have added the emphasis in the text.)

"The stylus is one of the simplest and most economical instruments of scientific practice. Apparently unsophisticated though ubiquitous, it plays a constitutive role in the production of knowledge. In the context of scientific research, both drawing and writing involve much more than the recording of what was previously thought or observed. Rather, they produce effects of their own that are connected to the particular techniques of their use. Stylus, pencil, and pen have the power to mediate: they translate observations into two-dimensional, and thus easily reproducible, texts and images; they concretize cognitive processes and in this way open up an interaction between perception and reflection, between the securing of phenomena and the formation of theses. Many objects and phenomena become available and comprehensible only through drawn and written records. Moreover, the activity of writing and drawing constitutes one of the most critical steps in scientific research: the step from (potentially) ambiguous data to stable facts."

• "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."-- Confucius