Pencil Sharpening Techniques

I ran into this blog posted by Matthew James Taylor titled “The Art of Sharpening Pencils”. It’s a helpful resource on sharpening pencils for art purposes. In his post, he describes several pencil points he likes to use for different types of drawing. The image below is one Matthew claims to have created himself called the Bullet Point which he uses to make both soft and sharp lines.

For those of you who may not be quite as adept with using a knife to sharpen your pencil, I have determined that a similar effect can be gained by using our Blackwing long point sharpener. Here are the steps:

1. Use the #1 hole to remove the wood leaving your unsharpened graphite core exposed as usual.

2. Partially insert the pencil point into the #2 hole (note: works best if you insert just a bit short of where the screw holds the blade to the sharpener body or about 1/3 of the distance into the sharpener).

3. Angle the pencil at a greater angle resting the wooden cone on the bottom of the pencil hole until the graphite tip is up against the sharpening blade.

4. Lightly turn the pencil a few turns while keeping the angle and pressure constant so that you can re-create the Bullet point on the end of the flatter graphite point. (note: gentle action and a steady hand is required here, but you need to be a bit careful about breaking your point.)

Of course most pencil art books suggest use of a knife rather than a sharpener for creating various pencil points used for different drawing techniques. Derwent has a general guideline page on their website titled “How to Sharpen” which gives various options and how to know when your sharpener blade is dull.

NOTE: Matthew is also the creator of the Graeme Frontbum’s Pet World Cartoon Strip and campaign manager for the Graeme Frontbum for President of the Internet campaign.