Thrifty Thursday

Charcoal pencils are another great tool when first starting out in art. They are very forgiving to use and you don’t need a ton to start with. Don’t worry about getting the most expensive charcoal pencils. Inexpensive brand pencils work just as well, sometimes even better than the expensive brands.

Just like with graphite pencils buy only a few different levels of hardness. In the past I was using the Ritmo brand but found they had changed and seemed to break more easily so I switched back to General’s, the brand I used in college.

When using your charcoal pencils if you feel like there are tiny rocks in the pencil or the pencil seems to just scratch the paper, sharpen your pencil to remove the hard part. If this continues or seems to happen often then you may need to switch brands.

Pencil Basics:

The numbers and letters on the pencils correspond with the hardness of the charcoal.

Pencil numbers with an “H” = harder pencils and make lighter lines
Pencil numbers with a “B” = softer pencils and make darker lines