One key to enable you to draw properly and fluidly is sharpening your medium correctly. At times a pencil sharpener wont do so you have to sharpen your mediums by hand.

My charcoal box was a mess after moving. So I reorganized it to what it is supposed to be. This is what I take with me to drawing groups or practiced studio time at home. It is a lot of stuff but the cleanup and portability is not overbearing. 

My board holds a 18x24 smooth newspaper 

My first figure drawing class was online correspondence. I was never home schooled but I figured for the most part must feel the same way. One skill you need to know to draw most importantly besides holding your medium properly is sharpening your medium to be sharp and smooth. Without proper guidance it effected my strokes in my drawings.  At the summer program they showed how to do it in diagrams but the descriptions and directions could be more clear.Or when I did my basics at the community college nobody really supervised and explained I was learning terrible technique.

It wasn't until I attended my first drawing group when I was 19 after a month or so someone noticed my tools to be rather dull and lumpy. They showed me what I was doing wrong and pointed me to the right direction of how to do it properly. Ironically the person who corrected of my bad habit was this creepy guy. Who for some reason in my community everyone puts him at high regard and respects him. And I'm like nobody sees his creeper status? The way he be creepin'? One weird coincidence and strange story was I ran into him at the bar. That was one of the most awkward moments of my life after avoiding him for a long time refusing to spend time with him.





What you generally need

Your desired dull medium
Utility Knife
Smooth grain sandpaper with a block
Trash can, bag or large piece of paper.

Optional: Gloves in a bottle
Charcoal can be one of those mediums that can dry your hands and is not easy to get off your hands if you use it all the time.


I found this product in my freshman year of artschool when I started AAU. My hands were always dirty and were dry and raw because I would wash them frequently and have leftover charcoal on my hands. This protects your hands, and makes an invisible breathable layer between your hands and the glove lotion. It makes it easy to wash off your hands.

Before 

After
 washed with regular soap and it wasnt
my usual lava soap to make a point

1) Hold the charcoal with your non-dominant hand

 Hold the knife gently like this. I did it like that so you can see 

what I am doing because it is blinded in the proper position. 

2) Now with your dominant hand grip the utility knife with all your fingers except your thumb.

 3) Use your available dominant thumb to pare the wood or charcoal try to slice thin layers each time you pull down your thumb. Have it graze the wood or charcoal. If you go in chunks you risk cutting too much of into your desired medium. Or losing control of the knife and cutting yourself. Do this slowly so that it does slip you are not harmed as much. Use your index finger on your other hand to support the charcoal while doing this.

 So get it to this point.

This is to show what I am doing.

I use my finger as a support for the charcoal when smoothing the edge

4)Now with the wood removed on a charcoal pencil. Half an inch is ideal. Use the smooth grain sandpaper to smooth the end and sides to a point /\  The main point I was missing was rotate your
                                                                             /   \
hand and medium  as you rub the charcoal on the sandpaper so when it is grinded down it does it in a equal fashion. Make sure it is a fine grain of sandpaper if it is lumpy with really gritty sand then it will produce the same results on your medium.

A good point and a broken one that broke in the process.

And now you get this cool tool!

With the paper I mentioned in the beginning it makes it for an easier cleanup after the damage has been done. Just fold the paper over and toss it.

With charcoal blocks shave off the sharp corners like this.
And then smooth it out with the sandpaper.

 It wont look perfect after shaving the corners. 

It will look jagged until it is smoothed out with the sand paper.

This is one of my favorites. With the wider compressed charcoal. I didn't have any new ones to demonstrate on. But I like the rounded smooth sides and multiple points.

*Another Note
Be very vary that the quality of charcoal and graphite can be determined in how after being manufactured the shipping and handling has a major impact in whether you have a good batch or not.

At times you may get a bad batch where the wood can be too coarse or too much clay in the charcoal mixture or if there is breakage inside the pencil when it was handled. You don't know until you try to sharpen or use them. I personally buy them in bulk so there isn't any issues so there is a higher probability that you will get something good even if it is from a bad batch.

*Tip Depending on how often and how much you have in your collection and what you used in your last session.. Sharpening time may vary at times I try to watch a movie, show or even a podcast to get through this chore.One time I had company over and since they like to talk alot I was like it is just weird for me to just sit and talk and not do anything so is it cool that I sharpen charcoal?

It takes time and practice and patience to nail it. I mean there are times I sharpen a few and it always breaks and I don't get any use from it.

Hello here is a random fact for today.

I'm writing another intricate tutorial it takes more than a week to write, demonstrate and take pictures. Hopefully I'll have this tutorial out sometime this next weekend or early next week.

Last year I bought this glass drafting table. With the intention that someday I would find a led light large and bright enough to create a huge light table.

About a few months ago I bought this 40 inch slim led light from Blick that was on clearance.

 Light tables are used to trace something like a sketch to a finer piece of paper. Since I don't own a awesome Espon Wide format printer (I can operate one and fix one though!) I have found a workaround.  I've learn some printing techniques to accommodate my style of a mixed media artist. I like to mix digital and traditional methods and bounce back and fourth between them.

Some tools in your arsenal aren't manufactured and you have to come up with them on your own.

Random 2-5 minute doodle sketches done in Photoshop done while listening to a show.

Interesting note This was the first Grouch track I listened to. Every time I listen to this song without fail it shuffles and appears randomly when I live by myself. When you live by yourself it is strange to hear other people unless expected.  It tricks me every single time because I think someone is there when no one else is around but myself.

I enjoy Japanese anime

I usually try to control how much manga I read or anime watching because it interferes with being a functioning and productive member of society.

One I'm addicted to and still currently airing is

Subete na F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider
meaning
Everything becomes F: The Perfect Insider

The genre is Psychological Thriller and Mystery

One plot of the story is figuring out the meaning. To me everything becomes F(****ed)

I found another humorous explanation online like Everything becomes Frustrating Cliffhangers

One of my favorite genres of entertainment is Psychological Thrillers. I have mentioned before that somehow with a lot of tv and film I can figure out the plot fairly quickly. And in certain cases

and with this show my first theory was correct about the mystery and made me question what the solution was. My gut feeling is usually right about 90% of the time...! It made me second guess myself and really question what happened I was partially right with my conclusion but how the story unravels makes it worth while for you to experience .

Another note to make I won't talk in movies or t.v unless it is a terrible movie with terrible acting and filled with cliches. Like James Cameron's Avatar. I was on pain medication after getting my wisdom teeth removed to practically actually watch the movie without being able to get up and turn it off...With a swollen face and my face so numb I didn't feel the drool on my face. And we didn't even bother to remember the character's names.

There are two more episodes left for The Perfect Insider and it airs on Thursday mornings. I watch it on Crunchy Roll.

This show is brilliant and can throw one in a mind loop in a strategic way.

I was really surprised what the show was about after the main plot was revealed. I was skeptical that it happened and really did not know what to expect.


All I can say is that without too much detail Saikawa Sensei an distinguished awarded computer programmer and his student Moe Nishinosono go to this lab facility of the great computer programmer Dr. Magata Shiki who has locked herself in her lab for 15 years after being accused of murder. Dr. Magata has been making a lot of public appearances on t.v recently and accepts audiences from certain people. She is a fascinating character that you would like to know more about who got her doctorates as a young teenager. 

Another great refreshing show from this fall/winter season is

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation. This show features interesting stand alone single episode mysteries. The BB features a strong intelligent female lead. And for once for it being a female lead it is not a romance story, One time when I was tired I told someone it was a air of fresh breath I don't remember what I was talking about but I think it was about being open and dating a type of person you normally wouldn't so it is a different experience. The real quote is a breath of fresh air. Somehow the other version I say more often as a joke to see if people are paying attention to what I am saying.





Sakurako is an osteologist that recreates animal bones. As her assistant and friend Shotaro says their adventures usually start off with them looking for animal bones but always seem to find human ones instead and solve the mystery behind those bones.

The show has a lot of intricate animations and beautiful scenery to show off.

Another anime series I watched this last summer was
Punch Line

When you read the description it makes one curious about the story.













Taken from Wikipedia

About the Show

Yūta Iridatsu lives at the Korai House apartment complex with four girls; Mikatan Narugino, Ito Hikiotani, Meika Daihatsu, and Rabura Chichibu. One day, following a busjacking incident, Yūta finds himself ejected from his own body and becoming a spirit. Guided by the cat spirit Chiranosuke, Yūta must learn to master his spirit powers in order to protect his housemates from the various circumstances they find themselves in. However, if Yūta sees a girl's panties twice in a row, the Earth will be destroyed by a meteor.

In Japanese media if  one has a dirty thought or sees something
they get a nosebleed.

The show takes awhile to warm up. Somehow I found the story to be similar to the N64 game Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, With all the weird comedy in the first couple of episodes somehow the show also takes a serious tone and becomes a time traveling story about saving the world from an impacting meteoroid not told in sequential order but makes better sense as the story unravels. For those who stick with watching it after not having a strong start it has an excellent story that makes you laugh really hard and also cry at the same time. One quirky part of the show is one justice organization is called Punch Line with its leader being called Strange Juice.

At times for me enjoying other forms of art is motivating. Like how that kind of character is cool or that is an interesting take on that subject and makes me think and broadens my horizons as a designer and not just an artist.

I want my cake and eat it too.