Saw some really nice drawings being done with a black (PC935) Prismacolor pencil. It highlighted the drawing really well so went down to Deans Art in the city and grabbed one.

Prismacolor’s don’t come pre-sharpened and to my surprise with my trusty Derwent sharpener, the lead kept breaking, not once, not twice but three times before I gave up. Thinking it was a bit strange I fired up Google to find many sites on this issue, a notable one here.

So, it appears that while this brand of coloured pencil is popular, it has a terrible problem with the lead breaking. My workaround, as I am not buying a new sharpener, is to use sandpaper to shave the wood down to the lead and then lightly swivel the lead over the sharpener blade to form a point.

I also picked up another Artline pigment pen with a 0.8mm nib.