Keep Your Nitram Sharp... and the Charcoal Dust to a Minimum!

Keeping your charcoal sharp is a necessity when drawing, unfortunately dust can sometimes be an unpleasant side effect. While Nitram does produce significantly less dust than other charcoals, here are few tips to keep your studio virtually dust free. Use a large mouth container with a handle. I prefer a plastic Folgers Coffee container because you can grip the outside and not get any charcoal on your fingertips like you would with a tin.

Take a paint stick and glue 220 grit sandpaper to both sides. When there is a lot of residue, simple turn the stick over and continue sharpening on the other side. This will cause the residue to fall into the container. Make sure that when sharpening you do not go past the edge of the container.

When you have a sharp point simply tap the stick on the edge of the container. This helps eliminate the dust around the container, and keep it out of the air!