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Why Should You Try Charcoal Drawing?
Charcoal is a smooth yet brittle material that has similar properties tochalk pastel.
Lighter, less dense charcoal is particularly adept at flying over the page and is great for casual sketches.
Photo:Stock Photosfrom Burhan Bunardi/Shutterstock
But, don’t underestimate the incredible depth it can achieve.
Photo:Stock Photosfrom Burhan Bunardi/Shutterstock
Different Types of Charcoal
There are three popular types of charcoal.
Willow Charcoal and Vine Charcoal
Willow and vine charcoal come in long, wispy strips.
Photo:Stock Photosfrom joannawnuk/Shutterstock
It is powdered charcoal held together with a binder of gum or wax.
Because of this, its great for details in a charcoal drawing with well-defined lines and textures.
Compressed charcoal comes in sticks or its more popular pencil form.
The pencil is very handy because you might sharpen to get a nice point.
Powdered charcoal, in contrast, is exactly how it soundsits dusty.
To use this, youll want to have apaintbrushor cloth handy and be prepared to get messy.
This jot down of charcoal is great for filling in larger areas.
Charcoal Paper
Choose your paper wisely.
Drawing onto a toothy surface will help to extract some of the charcoal onto the paper.
However, don’t feel limited to white paper.
Black charcoal works well with different tones as well such as gray, brown, and tan paper.
Try this:Legion Paper Stonehenge Multi-Color Paper Pad
White Eraser
Charcoal is messy!
Grab a white vinyl eraser to get rid of them.
This special punch in of eraser looks like putty and is soft, too.
A popular technique with a kneaded eraser in charcoal art is called reductive drawing.
In this style of drawing, you are using the eraser to take away the powder and build form.
This is great for highlights.
To clean a kneaded eraser, simply pull it apart until it returns to its natural gray color.
you’ve got the option to wash this with water once it gets too full of charcoal.
Its composition is similar to that of compressed charcoal and it comes in stick or pencil form.
In most cases, youll want to use it sparingly as an accent.
Some particles are bound to fall off when moving your paper.
Use fixative to solve this problem.
ensure that these are used in well-ventilated areas.
Charcoal, because it has a chalky finish, doesnt lend itself as well to those more precise techniques.
Youll want to focus onblendingandlayeringcharcoal instead.
In doing this, however, the tone will become lighter.
So, as you blend, its important to layer and build up your tones.
First, use the back-and-forth approach to cover the area of your paper with charcoal.
Repeat this step until youve reached your desired intensity.
When creating your charcoal drawing, dont be afraid to mix types of charcoal.
This will help build tone as well and allow you to define detail in your drawing.
Start with the vine charcoal to depict large shapes and set the overall tone of your drawing.
As you draw, be sure that you dont go too dark too fast.
Charcoal, especially compressed, can be unforgiving and hard to completely erase.
Once youre done using the compressed charcoal, consider your highlights.
White charcoal is ideal for this, as is using a kneaded eraser for reductive drawing.
ensure You Know These Basic Techniques before you dive in
