Charcoal, my old nemesis! As someone who primarily draws in line, the emphasis on light, shadow and blocks of value required for working in charcoal has always been especially challenging for me. I’ve also historically struggled with the physical application of the medium. I just flat out don’t know how to manipulate it well. I tend to go too dark, too soon, I have terrible accuracy with thick sticks of vine or compressed charcoal, I leave smudges and fingerprints everywhere despite my best efforts, and I seem incapable of making smooth gradations in tone. It’s not for lack of trying. I own several books on charcoal drawing, have watched tutorial videos etc. At the end of the day, I feel like a righthanded musician trying to switch to a lefthanded guitar. I understand how it works, conceptually, but my hands are too awkward, clumsy and uncoordinated to do what I want them to do. I feel pretty confident that I could teach how to draw with charcoal, as long as I could skirt having to demonstrate the techniques with virtuosity. I could ghost write a book on the subject, how about that?
All of that said, I really like the look of charcoal work. I love the smokey, ethereal atmosphere that can be achieved when used well. I appreciate its malleability, it’s forgiving nature, and that it forces the use of a different way of thinking. It’s something I’d love to get better at, which is why I chose it as my first medium to experiment with.
Rustling through my box of art supplies turned up sticks of vine and compressed charcoal (both thick and thin) as well as Derwent and General’s charcoal pencils in light, medium, soft and white. All of these materials are dirt cheap, though the packaging touts their “finest quality!” so I guess they’re fit for gods and kings. Charcoal drawing necessitates a lot of blending, so I armed myself with multiple types of tortillon, a paintbrush, Q-tips, paper towels and fat fingers. Again, super cheap, but also, the best money can buy. For erasing (but really, another method of drawing!) I grabbed a kneaded and retractable stick eraser.
As I hadn’t touched any of this stuff in a few years, the first thing I did was go into my Canson XL mixed media sketchbook and start playing around, trying to remind myself of what each of these things do, how they work together, and the types of marks you can make with them. I did several pages like this, laying down marks, varying the pressure, rubbing over them with other tools and just generally testing what was possible. The short answer? Everything. There are approximately 1 trillion different effects that can be achieved with charcoal. My Canson sketchbook has some tooth to it. I really like the textured marks that come naturally on this kind of paper.
For the actual drawing, I moved to a Strathmore Toned Gray drawing pad. I use these things for everything, as they provide a built in midtone to use as a starting point, and work well with both dark and light mediums. Bonus, they’re cheap!
I pulled up a stock photo of a head to use as a reference for general feature placement and a lighting set up, but didn’t concern myself too much with a likeness, for down that path, madness awaits. First I did a rough block in of structure, proportion, and some of the darker areas.
From there, it was mostly about laying down marks and manipulating them with my various blending tools, trying to get some smooth tonal shifts while hopefully retaining some of the handmade feel. I don’t like things to look too smooth, and try my best to retain some texture, stray lines, happy accidents and evidence that this is a drawing. Personally, I have no interest at all in photorealism. I also tried to use the erasers as a drawing tool as much as possible, blocking in areas of tone and then cutting away at them with the kneaded and stick erasers.
Then it was just about refinement. Honestly speaking, I’d say over refinement. I think I pushed this past the point where I should have stopped, noodling away at little areas that don’t make much of an impact at the expense of stepping back and looking at the drawing as a whole. The proportions are a little weird in places, some of the planar edges of the face way too hard, and I went overboard with the white charcoal in the final stretch. I made use of every tool at my disposal to some degree, but by the end, found myself most comfortable working with just vine charcoal, my finger for blending, and my erasers. I definitely grew more comfortable as I went, and learned a lot that I would apply from the get go in my next attempt. I’m not hanging this on my parent’s fridge by any means, but all said, probably one of my more successful charcoal drawings. And hey, I had fun doing it, and isn’t that what really matters?
Some notes about usage in a classroom context: Fixatiff is a necessity if working heavily with loose, powdery vine charcoal but is prohibited from use by small children indoors. Take it outside to spray, or have an adult do it after class. The charcoal itself is relatively harmless to kids, though maybe not their clothes or your walls. I guess it could provide a potential choking hazard, but in my experience, most non-consumable objects do if you eat them. We still let kids have access to crayons and glue, so, this shouldn’t be any worse. There’s no need for children to use a knife for sharpening their charcoal pencils, a regular ol’ plastic pencil sharpener will work just fine. Knives and blades are best saved for pretentious adult artists, determined to impress people with their needlessly artisanal tools.
From a feasibility standpoint, I think charcoal can be used by students of practically any age. As a tool, it’s not that much more sophisticated than chalk or colored pencil. It has some of the simple, tactile fun inherent in something like finger paint. Due to the methodology behind it, it’s probably better suited to slightly older kids, say, 4th grade and up. To take advantage of its strengths requires artists who can think in terms of form, light and shadow as opposed to line.