Tag: Charcoal

By: Lottie Bynum

To draw in charcoal, people should have a few things:

• Charcoal pencils (2-6B to start off with as well as white charcoal)
• Blending stumps(if you can’t get them blending with your fingers is okay!)
• Sandpaper (to clean the blending stumps)
• Paper that works with charcoal (a thicker more textured paper, not like printer paper)
• Various kinds of erasers(kneaded, normal, electric, and any other you would usually use)

Other than that there are other decisions to consider: the way to sketch your drawing or if you are going to sketch in the first place. I like to sketch in graphite pencil to get all of my ideas and shapes down before going into darker charcoal because pencil is easier to erase for mistakes in the first iteration. Also from the list above it lists blending stumps which are kind of soft rolled pieces of paper to help blend out the charcoal. Blending stumps are very helpful in drawing with charcoal, however blending with your fingers if you don’t have blending stumps still works! Unlike with graphite, charcoal is less impacted by the oils on skin and doesn’t cause the drawing to yellow over time, like it does with graphite. Another alternative is using paint brushes to blend. Although that is a different method of drawing in charcoal, it usually involves powder charcoal on paper where the artist “paints” with charcoal to create beautiful images. Sandpaper, as stated above, can be used to clean blending stumps and get them back to a fine tip, but isn’t totally necessary(I don’t use it, I never learned how to haha). Paper which works with charcoal is usually a more textured thicker paper to hold onto the charcoal as something smooth like printer paper or notebook paper could cause the charcoal to not adhere to the page correctly and cause it to smudge easily. Erasers are a crucial part of charcoal drawings as they cover up mistakes but also add to the ability to add value to the drawing and fine details. 

To draw in charcoal try and stick to small lines as charcoal spreads far so, a little goes a long way! For charcoal pencils I almost never use the 2B as I find it hard to blend but try it for yourself and see how it works with the style you are going with. Since charcoal is so dark, work with the considerations for your lights in the drawing as to not become too dark where it will become hard to lighten it back up. White charcoal can be used to lighten places but it often adds a cool tint to wherever it is added to so keep that in mind. Another thought for the pencils is to keep a good sharpener or X-Acto knife on hand to sharpen the pencils for a fine tip. Charcoal is brittle so it can easily break and X-Acto knives are great for handling the pencils when a sharpener is too rough(on this note try not to drop your charcoal pencils too much because of their brittleness their charcoal core can break inside the wooden exterior and cause it to be hard to draw or sharpen them). After that, just have fun drawing!