Drawing Basics
Getting Started
Lines
Shapes
How Perspective Works
Intuitive Perspective
Values
Edges
Bonus Content
Course In Progress
Course In Progress
Here’s our final lesson on materials. I’ll show you all the ways I sharpen all the pencils that I use. Come back again tomorrow, cause I’ll give you guys a walk-through of your first drawing project, Simplifying from Observation.
Newest
The Wonkee
2mo
I have had a set of Charcoal pencils sitting next to my drawing desk for 1 or 2 years now, and ive been completely terrified of using them. I think its time I sharpen these bad boys up and try making a couple marks!
Brianna Huber
4mo
If anyone’s looking for a less spendy alternative to the Blackwing two-step long point sharpener, I got lucky and came across one from KUM yesterday when I went out looking for the Blackwing one. I got it for $8.99 at my alma mater’s campus bookstore. They have a whole floor of office and art supplies. I tried the sharpener out on some of my drawing pencils and so far so good.
Shiro
4mo
Woah !!! When you fake sharpened the stylus I almost passed out haha
@alexmolaver
6mo
Sharpening a conte 2b charcoal pencil with the razor without it breaking like in the video is so hard in my experience. I'll end up breaking the lead repeatedly until like the whole pencil is gone. I wonder if I'm causing the breaks or if they just come with lead that got broken during shipping inside the wood in a bunch of places like it was in the video. Thankfully the conte b pencil can still go as dark as you need if you just press harder or layer it more, and those sharpen just fine for me most of the time.
Juice
6mo
What do you think of this sharpener? 😅 its that crappy standard sharpener but made as a drill bit so you can use your screwdriver for sharpening 😅. Uri Tuchman on YouTube’s invention.
Nate Ferguson
7mo
After revisiting this lesson, I now know that I've been applying the charcoal sharpening technique to the wooden graphite pencil. These long graphite shards sticking out from the wood are kinda ridiculous. haha. I'll keep drawing with them until they get back to normal. Not sure about the grade of my sandpaper but it's been working so I'm just going with it.
Brianna Huber
4mo
I'm glad I rewatched this lesson because I had forgotten that the razor blade method only applies to charcoal and full-graphite pencils, heh.
George Ramirez
8mo
I got a blackwing 2-step and it was worthless from the beginning. The graphite step could not do a thing. It looks so easy in and just works in the video but I had 0 luck.
PIBA
8mo
Always thought that if my dark grade pencils had long points I could only use them for shading cuz they always get stubby
but knowing i can sharpen them on sandpaper is a life saver
Brianna Huber
4mo
The sandpaper sharpening reminder brought me back to my HS drafting class days.
@thealexbeast
10mo
I really liked the sharpening board Stan showed off in the video and decided to make my own
Nate Ferguson
7mo
That's amazing! Did you repurpose something or did you cut that out of one piece of timber? Either way that's really impressive.
@amadeus_024
11mo
All I currently have are old graphite pencils and a hand-powered sharpener. Still, it actually felt exciting to sharpen the pencils again after a while!
Nate Ferguson
7mo
I always loved those mechanical pencil sharpeners!
Dale Billyton
11mo
0:53 that is alot of pencils bro!
Angiev
1yr
Wow, very informative the first lessons I've learned a lot. Now I know what supplies are crap and what I might want to order and I've been drawing and painting for years. I'm so glad I bought this course.
@markimus
1yr
Hello everyone! Does anyone have a long point electric pencil sharpener they recommend? The one Stan linked in the "Get your tools and start playing" video is no longer available, and I am curious what has worked for people =)
Cariad Eccleston
2yr
Not gonna lie: you got me for a *second* with the Wacom stylus! 😅
James Sunderland
2yr
Does this look about right?
Josh Fiddler
2yr
They look lovely. In my experience, you're going to have some harder edges where the graphite more rapidly changes angle from the drawing edge to the edge of the pencil shaft itself. If you look at what Stan has, there is a much softer, longer transition from the drawing tip to the shaft to avoid this.
That said, you may want to have a hard edge like that but that's a question of edge control you may develop later.
EDIT: I added a screen cap from the video from 8:54
Jacob Ibáñez
2yr
I already feel like a pro by sharpening charcoal pencils and getting my fingertips dirty
Crystal Beder
2yr
Excellent subtle art creation, as Proko makes a Batman symbol, on the sandpaper, while sharpening the woodless graphite pencil…
•
2yr
WOW, indeed! This went by totally unnoticed to me. Nice catch, @Crystal Beder!
Charles
2yr
To be honest... learning about the mechanical pencil was so awesome. Got my amazon list ready for drawing. Really loved this video!
Sepia Officinalis
2yr
Wow, when I saw the title I thought : I'm going to skip that so fast... but then it turns out it's full of super good tips. Not to be missed!
@somebodythatexists
3yr
Anyone else got jumpscared by the holy sound-effect? I was wearing headphones and it was kinda loud. Made me jump on my seat.
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructor
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
