Pastel pencil question
In response to Loz Robinson’s question (LP, February issue), I think your frustration with regards to pencil sharpening is shared by most artists, Loz. There is no easy answer to this, as you probably suspected, and I am unsure which brands you use or prefer. I do use pencil sharpeners and have done now for many years. The pencil sharpeners I use are cheap (those used in schools) and are mainly plastic, although I also buy metal pencil sharpeners.
The trick to using this type of sharpener is not to overuse each one. Once the blade starts to go blunt, you will either break the wood surrounding the pastel or lose the whole tip within the sharpener. I usually get three to four complete sharpens of a pencil per sharpener before it goes blunt and starts to break the wood. Breakages seem to happen more often with light-coloured pencils, but you work out which colours within certain brands are more prone to breaking than others, if you use them often enough.
The best way not to overuse a pencil sharpener is to have plenty to hand. I order them in packs of 50 to 100 (cost is about £5 to £7 from eBay or Amazon) then I won’t be tempted to use a sharpener that is past its best. Mindful of how many I was throwing away when they became blunt, I tried buying replacement blades, but the blades never seemed to go back in at the right angle and didn’t work.
I paint mainly with Faber-Castell Pitt pastels and Cretacolor pastel pencils and they sharpen very well with plastic and metal sharpeners. I will even use a sharpener on the tip of a Derwent pastel pencil to make it last longer, just so I don’t have to get the craft knife out! Derwent sell their own range of sharpeners for their pastels, as their pencils are too wide to fit in traditional sharpeners.
With regards to your questions about storage, making sure they are stored carefully and are not dropped on hard floors is the most important thing. They also need to be kept in a dry place as the pastel can suck up any moisture in the air, which makes them soft and alters the colour. I tend to use plastic tubs with lids to store mine in, but I personally don’t store them in colour ranges or mix my brands.
Lucy Swinburne www.tamingwildlife.com