Charcoal art pencils get sharpened a bit different than your average pencils. Here's how I do it! Check out more pencil sharpening techniques in the full video linked under this Short's title.
@@ProkoTV I'm sure you can if you try hard enough. Even if the charcoal breaks, you still have the wooden part... (Oh no, am I giving tips on how to murder people with pencils now? Great.)
@@u.n.k.n.o.w.n_k.n.o.w.n definitely take ur time sharpening tho an maybe practice on a cheap pencil, really wanna be careful once it starts to get long its super easy to break, one drop an u gotta resharpen
And then after 20 minutes when you got that perfect, pin point sharp, long nice charcoal you start do draw and your work looks shitty and pencil gets broken and its all wasted
This is a pretty common one you'll find in most stores and on Amazon. As long as you don't buy them from the shaving section, most will come with that non-bladed side.
Charcoal is a pretty inherently messy medium. Even if this sharpening process was totally clean, you're going to make some mess while using it. It's just the nature of the charcoal!
Keeping a slight angle on the blade helps, think guillotine and kitchen knives. May seem scary at first but been sharpening my pens with a blade or pocket knife for decades and now it’s just second nature
I don't try to reclaim the charcoal I grind off on the sandpaper since it has wood in it as well. But some people in the comments have talked about making use of it.
Yep! This allows you to use the long, exposed side of the charcoal with the overhand grip. That lets you make thin and thick marks interchangeably, without adjusting your hand.
I don't normally use much more than the sharpener for a graphite pencil. For charcoal pencils, you want the longer exposed edge to make a variation of line types/thicknesses
You might be applying too much pressure on the process. You don't have to push down at any part of this. Just let the tools do the work. It's a learning curve at first.
this is for the better line pressure and more comfortable grip. also you don't have to sharpen your pencil every five minutes when you sharpening with a knife.
A sharpener is a great tool for something you just want a fine point on. With charcoal pencils, we use the side and tip interchangeably so we need to have that long side as well
You obviously have more length of usable material (the exposed charcoal), that gives you more line variation and you can also use it to achieve broad extensive flats e.g. a rectangle with one stroke, like using a brush instead of it being achieved by putting multiple lines side by side. You also dont have to sharpen as often.
put simply: artists need pencils to be more versatile, especially because we hold it like a spoon and draw with the side when we sketch. Plus, these types of pencils are usually more expensive to normal ones. You don't really want the amount of waste that comes with sharpening, and a sharpener just gives a small sharp tip which can't do much and lasts a only a short time. Bear in mind that soft lead and charcoal pencils are thicker and softer than the hard lead pencils you write with. You COULD make a very long sharpener I guess, but imagine how much you'd waste trying to get a sharp edge, which can be achieved a lot more efficiently with a blade.
