4 Best Charcoal Pencils for Drawing - Watts Weekly

Join instructor, Brian Knox, as he discusses some of the pencils used by teachers and students alike, at the Atelier.
Conte 1710 - B
General's - 4B
Wolff's Carbon Pencil - 4B
Wolff's Carbon Pencil - 6B
At Watts Atelier, smooth newsprint is preferred for life-drawing.
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[@FunkeeDonkee]

I love how Brian messes around leaving simple marks on the paper, then flips the paper and then BOOM - masterpiece!

[@kingpen1179]

I really love watching your videos😊😊🇵🇭

[@mitchellscott1843]

Partial to General....and I actually enjoy my Faber Castell charcoal pencils as well...they seem to get overlooked for some reason but also a solid choice.

[@kronos77]

Do you mean the Pitt pastels or something else?

[@j.eartdrawing3606]

I'm happy that I know about your channel! I enjoy watching your videos, you have great techniques, thanks for sharing ❤

[@jeffhreid]

I like that the General’s are still made in the USA

[@nerzenjaeger]

Hated them when I started, but eventually I've found great appreciation for their coarseness.

[@melisaura_art]

Omg, I was just thinking about this! You just solved my problem. Thank you! I have a question about materials: for the people like myself who can't get a particular newsprint paper brand like yours (they don't sell them here), does regular newsprint paper work as well? (I'm from Argentina, btw) Thanks again, I will join the atelier one day ♥

[@jelellyy]

From my experience with rough newsprint your values will have a more grainy look and they wear out your pencils a bit faster. But they are still great learning. I'd go with smooth if possible, just get the cheapest brand.

[@turtleultraviolet758]

Very informative Brian; I also love your Reilly videos!

[@olegstrekachev6734]

Hey Brian, thanks for the video

[@schubert06sebastian39]

I still use Ritmo charcoal pencil when I took Jeff Watts class back in 2000. That was his recommended pencil

[@HuynhMyAnh-ix3iu]

Ty so much for giving me more selections about buying and using charcoal pencils❤️

[@attilamityok7652]

I'm looking forward to your online head and figure drawing lessons Brian!!! 8D

[@mesuthan]

Great tutorial! A video on papers would be much appreciated as well. I have a question about the conte's. Do you get any rock hard points in them? I like them but I get a lot of hard points which damage the paper and make indelible marks.

[@mikepelosi9877]

They use smooth newsprint for almost everything including this video.

[@Kliffot]

Got hard points on Conté Carbone, but never on Pierre Noire till now. Maybe a batch thing..

[@mikepelosi9877]

@@Kliffot My wife got me 20 Conte Pierre Noire pencils for Christmas. Of the bunch, I'd say 11 were usable (sharpened to a hard tip) and the rest were somewhere between "I'll just use it as a regular pencil" to "I'm not spending any more time with you, in the trash!" The "leads" inside sometimes have a lot of integrity and are long, solid pieces. Other times, it's just fragments of the pencil glued together than chip and break off into rocks. I don't have that problem with Wolff Carbon, but as Brian pointed out, it's not as versatile.

[@Kliffot]

@@mikepelosi9877 WOW ! that much ! hum.. I'm in France, I wonder if it's the same factory for the other country ( I know that some of their products are made in China now.. ) But maybe I was just lucky, dunno. Ahah I feel for you ^^ as said most of their Carbone were crap, too unreliable, I never bought them again. Haven't used a lot of Wolffs but indeed no issue for me with them either.

[@Gimipork]

I got those in mine as well, whenever I try to make do some smooth shading those ugly things mess it up XD The lines don't look that great either. Think I'll be looking at other brands unfortunately. Or could be I'm just too noob to make it work :P

[@longjohn7992]

Lovely

[@GenX1979]

Wonderful video and the drawings at the end are incredible. I’m doing the quick sketch course this week, will be picking these up for it!

[@arjenbergsma4781]

The Conté 1710 B with the golden letters were handmade in France. Now the Conté 1710 B are mass produced in China. The Conté 1710 B with the golden letters are hard to come by, because they are not produced any more. I heard the new ones are breaking much faster (I personally didn't experience this). Jeff Watts mentioned in one of his videos a while ago that you should get the one with the golden letters. I also heard rumors of the studens in the atelier that you were looking for another pencil to replace the Conté 1710 B, but I think after watchin this video that this rumor it is incorrect? Also I saw Jeff Watts using the Ritmo Charcoal. And then out of sudden they were not selling them as well. It was the working horse of many charcoal drawers. There are some new Ritmo charcoal pencils now, called "Ritmo Charcoal art alternatives", are they any good?

[@wattsatelier]

The current Ritmos are not very good for what we do at the Atelier anymore. In the past that was one of the main ones that we used, years ago. They probably have a lot of other utility but just don't work out too well on smooth newsprint for our specific technique. Very interesting to hear your description of the Conte. The gold banded and lettered ones were definitely the best, and for a while the newer ones were really not preforming well due to constant breaking when trying to sharpen them. Now they seem to be doing okay again so we are using them at the school!

[@arjenbergsma4781]

@@wattsatelier Thank you very much for your thoughts and opinions about the charcoal pencils. Who had I the pleasure talking to? May I ask you if you think you can become as good as one who attended Repin Academy, Angel Academy or your Atelier through just 'self education' meaning, following online courses from Watts Atelier, New Masters Academy and Vitruvian Studio and being your own critic (if you have the eyes for it)? I am learning from doing cast drawings, drawing life animals at the zoo. And I read books like Hogarth, Loomis and Barque. I don't have any money to attent your classes in person or here in Europe. But I will draw my family/friends from life or just regular folks on the street.

[@hakanlundberg]

The “classical” Ritmo’s were made by Fila in Italy (if I recall correctly). But they ended the production sometime around the turn of the millennium. I heard a story that the Walt Disney Studios urgently bought the remaining stocks for their illustrators. But it may be a myth. Or rather I think FILA attempted to have them produced somewhere else, but the quality and the characteristics deteriorated. And production was ended permanently. I was in contact with Fila in Italy back then about the pencils, and they didn’t seem to have had any understanding of its professional use. And I got the impression that it simply just didn’t exist an economically sustainable market for what professional “paper and pencil” illustrators prefer. And this was still before the digital drawing explosion. I teach drawing classes for kids/youths, and after the first paper and pencil classes, most reach for their iPads and Androids. So I think we unfortunately have to expect that much of what is used today-especially in such an area as charcoal pencil drawing-will either deteriorate in quality in a strife to make it cheaper for the majority of consumers (amateurs who have no idea about there being differences, and where retailers don’t know or bother about differences much either), or be removed from production. I suspect Art Alternatives took the name just to gain sales. Although the pencil isn’t available here in Europe, so It could be they have similar qualities and perhaps have bought trademark and “recipe” from FILA. I just found out that a good quality hot pressed paper I have used and bought a large amount of a decade or two ago wasn’t available when I needed more. So I have to find an alternative. And honestly, I can’t believe newsprint are used for these kind of drawings. It deteriorates in an instant. It can’t even be found here in Europe. If one bothers that little about paper quality why bother much about what pencils are being used. You do better with some smoother version of cheap office printer paper. And to my kid students I only recommend the latter for fast sketches. I can understand you use Newsprint as a poor art student for those massive amounts of 1-3 minute figure studies you might produce at certain colleges, but not for longer studies.

[@angeliqueroux3017]

😌 also the Koh I Noor pencil? Apparently it erases very well according to other students 🤔 I haven't found it in my country just yet.

[@monkehm]

How do these feel compared to traditional charcoal pencils or sticks? I can't stand the gritty, sandpapery feeling of regular charcoal, but I love the look of the carbon pencils like the Conte. How do they feel in comparison?

[@wattsatelier]

A lot of it is about the surface that you use it on. If you're using these pencils on something like a strathmore drawing paper then it will feel rough. The smooth newsprint and the special way we sharpen it makes it feel quite smooth overall, just as smooth if not more so than graphite. Probably the harder the pencil the more gritty it will have a tendency to feel as well. The B is a pretty solid balance for us in terms of conte, but the Wolff's a 4b or 6b.

[@artsbyimee]

Thank you for this very insightful❣️👏👍

[@nerzenjaeger]

Wolff's Carbon are my personal favourites, they feel more like pencils. The Conté are a little too thick for my taste, even though they _are_ very smooth. The General's, though somewhat coarse, are very easy to manipulate.

[@James-sd7eo]

Does the conte 1710 and wollfs carbon has the same texture when shading using the side of the pencil?

[@nerzenjaeger]

@@James-sd7eo Similar. Again, the Contés might be slightly smoother, but they are highly comparable. Especially if you get the 4Bs from Wolfsf.

[@AlitaBeyay]

Brian, I took a couple of your classes. I notice you’re using a B on the Conte. Ordinarily, I preferred the 3B because I could go straight to a darker, but they had become useless because they break all the way up the pencil . That was four years ago. Is that still the case today?

[@greekveteran2715]

Comte Pierre Noir is stronger, because it is not a charcoal. It's a completely different local French material, that was used before Graphite and charcoal took it's place!! Thanks for sharing all that knowledge! I'm new to charcoal sketching and even though It's still a love and hate relation because I'm a heavy handed, it's still a super nice medium to use! I like the fact that is really fast, faster than any other sketching medium probably! I love that! I also like the more warm color ones, like the Generals, Maries and Faber Castell. PS How can you create those super fine tips without braking them, and how do these hold with all tht charcoal exposed?! Mine break even if I look at them!!

[@artsiecrafty4164]

Good. You like MY favorite charcoal pencil.

[@MarkWhippy]

I’d like to know what you guys think about the generals peel and sketch pencils

[@synthlord4625]

Have you tried Faber-Castell charcoal.....if so your thoughts?

[@woodspirit100]

I can't get the Wolf's cabon here in Austria at the moment. Is that a problem when I want to take the Onlineprogram?

[@mrbasliusgamer9728]

Where do one get those pencils. Especially the general

[@keniamaya-schmidt890]

Ive found generals pencils pretty much anywhere. Hobby lobby, joanne, online like amazon or your local art stores

[@MuneemIslam]

wow this helped alot thanks

[@silpidraw6919]

Thanks ERIK 🙏me too conte is the best 🤟😜👌

[@kronos77]

Around 6:25 you said Jeff only uses Wolff's Carbon. Did you mean to name someone else?

[@terrydekker3233]

Where do you buy the Conte 1710 B pencils? I can't seem to find them anywhere.

[@dillo4938]

cool video, love it , what a kind of paper please ?

[@mikepelosi9877]

Smooth newsprint is used for almost everything at the school. Looks like this paper is smooth newsprint too.

[@ruggis]

The Conte 1710's I ordered have these tiny pebbles in the charcoal which scratch on the paper (smooth newsprint) surface and disturb my drawing and the flow of the process. Is that a manufacturing problem or do they all have this "feature"? The other pencils I have (wolfs carbon, generals & pitt) do not do that and they glide smoothly on the surface.

[@terrydegraff670]

I bought a whole box of the grainy ones you describe. I switched to the Wolfs Carbon because I assumed the Conte's were toast.

[@ruggis]

@@terrydegraff670 Ahh okay, nice to know that Im not alone with this :D

[@MrDezokokotar]

Gotta be a manufacturing flaw, mine are perfectly smooth.

[@mesuthan]

@@MrDezokokotar Where did you buy them from?

[@MrDezokokotar]

@@mesuthan Jacksons Art (UK)

[@bozoclown2098]

Not yet have any use for Wolff.

[@phyllisriley1013]

I find all this true on newsprint but when I change to paper I don’t care for them that much. I would for sure choose wolfs and never conte.

[@bozoclown2098]

I have my own way of creating long points if I want them

[@suntan8573]

Why not just tell the makers to sell only the leads (wood less).

[@chrisredfield3607]

Here's a lovely video I'd love to hear Jeff's thoughts on: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaCvo3msjrOtoqc. Also this set of videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5iUe56IbNqVgtk.

[@YTuseraL2694]

So basically, Conte pencil is better than all of them at everything.

[@Kliffot]

They very easily go dark, you have to sharpen them like here to get a large contact aera, helps a lot for the control of the very subtle light value. Also the Pierre Noire have a cold black, the Wolffs are warmer ( they actually are more similar to the Conté Carbone )

[@YTuseraL2694]

@@Kliffot agreed. I was personally captivated by how he got the entire value range in like 3-4 seconds with it.

[@bozoclown2098]

Long points are so wasteful and useless ,so far ,to me

[@saprissa9]

Are there pencil extensions for the Conte?

[@microzaz]

как называется это альбом на котором вы рисуете?

[@itsbritneybitch.886]

Is the first one charcoal or graphite ?