There are a wide variety of suitable sharpeners for use with colored pencils. Whether you choose to use a more conventional hand-held sharpener or electric sharpener, sharpening is an integral part of the colored pencil experience. It is well worth your time to do some research and read reviews for sharpeners by other artists before deciding which one to get.

Hand-held Sharpener:

A metal hand-held sharpener comes in handy when your pencils can no longer fit into an electric sharpener, or if you choose not to use an electric sharpener at all. These work best when the blades are sharp. Discard or replace the blade of a sharpener that breaks your pencils.

A hand-held sharpener with a receptacle is convenient for catching pencil shavings and debris and a transparent receptacle is better as you can see when it is time to empty the shavings.

Hand-held sharpeners can produce a desirable sharp point, however, many artists experience bad luck using hand-helds with soft core colored pencils and prefer to use an electric sharpener.

The trick is to gently turn the pencil with only enough pressure for the pencil to have contact with the blade, if you force the pencil with too much pressure, or if you do not keep the sharpener steady as you turn the pencil, the pencil can break.

More Points & Tips for Using a Hand-held Sharpener:

• Do not turn both the sharpener and pencil, turn one or the other. If you’re turning the pencil, keep the sharpener straight and still.
• Sharpen your pencils over a wastepaper bin if your sharpener does not have a receptacle because you do not want any pencil shavings or unwanted pencil pigment messed on your drawing.
• Prevent over-sharpening by taking the pencil out and checking the tip a couple of times during sharpening.

The following video demonstrates how I use my favorite hand-held sharpeners.

Electric Sharpener:

With the need to sharpen your colored pencils frequently, it is good to have a quality electric sharpener with an auto-stop function and one that can also accept the wider width pencils.

More Points & Tips for Using an Electric Sharpener:

• Make sure you are supporting the pencil well enough to guide it straight and level into the sharpener and straight out again and hold it steady so it does not move while sharpening. Hold the sharpener firmly with your other hand if it tends to vibrate or shake while the motor or cutters are running.
• If your electric sharpener does not have an auto-stop feature, take care to prevent over-sharpening by learning to listen to the sound that is made when your pencil is sharp, or take the pencil out and check the tip a couple of times during sharpening.
• Keep your sharpener clean by sharpening a graphite pencil periodically, also empty the shavings before the receptacle gets full.
• To clean the inside of your sharpener, you could use a can of pressurized air. Spray outside the house so the pencil residue does not fly out over your work space.

The following video demonstrates how I use my electric sharpener.

A Few Extra Points & Tips:

• For pencils like Prismacolors where both sides are unsharpened, pay attention to which side of the new pencil you sharpen, do not sharpen on the side where the name of the color is printed.
• No matter which sharpener you use: whenever you pull the pencil out, most of the time some of the debris from sharpening the pencil will come out with it, this can pollute your paper while working, so wipe the pencil clean with your non-drawing hand, or use a soft cloth to clean the pencil before you work.
• The characteristics of your strokes will vary with the sharpness of your pencil. Depending on the type of paper or surface you use, or type of coverage you are after, you will most likely want to keep your pencils extra sharp at all times.

My Colored Pencils keep breaking, what should I do?

A:   If you are consistently experiencing breaking pencils,
consider these possible problems:

• You may be using too much force while guiding the pencil
• You may have the pencil slanted at an angle while inserting or during sharpening of the pencil
• The blade or cutters of the sharpener may be faulty, dull or clogged
• The pencils may have been dropped and the core inside the pencil might be shattered
• The wood casing surrounding the core of the pencil may be fractured or defective

Good luck with your colored pencil sharpening!