Charcoal Drawing Tips

Many people love charcoal drawing. The thing about charcoal drawing, which differentiates it from other medium of drawings, like pencil shading, or brush work or mechanical pen shading, is that charcoal gives a very soft effect. Hence, you will see many portraits or drawings done by charcoal. Because, for drawing portraits, a soft drawing technique is required, which is naturally present in charcoal. Charcoal drawing is not difficult, but if you wish to draw detailed charcoal drawings then you need to practice different drawing skills to get the proportions and shape properly.

Charcoal Drawing Guide

Understanding Tones
Before attempt charcoal drawing, first you need to train your eye for understanding tones. This is the first drawing lesson, when it comes to shading using charcoal. Start by simply observing objects around you. Hold a object near you and look out for these three tones, which are dark tones in the object, middle tones in the object and highlights which are almost shown in a sketch as white. Also, you need to study shadows. Supposing, you are looking at an object and the light is falling from the top ceiling light. The light is directly on top of the object. Then the rim of the object or near the top, it will have few highlights which are tiny spots on the object which are the brightest. Then you will see some light tones at the top area of the object, around the middle region of the object there will me medium tones and at the bottom dark tones. And finally there will be a shadow of the object, somewhere on the floor or on the table, in case the object is placed on the table. This way start observing different objects.

Stuff You Need
Primarily, you need charcoal sticks and paper. There are different varieties of charcoal sticks and paper. Select a thick texture paper, so that erasing or rubbing doesn't tear the paper. You can buy vine uncompressed charcoal, also known as willow charcoal, or use compressed charcoal which looks like graphite and comes in pencil or stick form, with soft or hard shapes. A good white eraser and kneaded eraser are also required, as they help to create tones and highlights, and also make corrections. Blending stumps are good for adding minute details. You can also use small pieces of paper towels for rubbing vine charcoal drawings.

Charcoal Drawing Technique: Using Charcoal as a Pencil
There are mainly two charcoal drawing techniques, when it comes to drawing with charcoal, and they are opposite to each other. When using charcoal stick, like a pencil, you can do normal pencil sketches kind of drawing. However, the difference will be noticeable as the drawing will be softer. To practice this technique, my advice is that you use compressed charcoal, which comes in a pencil form, so that it becomes easier to use. Then draw any object's outline. Still life works best, you can place a fruit or simply place a vase, and observe it. Then draw it's outline, observe the tones, use shading to fill up the tones and draw shadows. To smudge the drawing you can use paper towel, and to bring out light tones or add highlights use eraser. Once you get confident with drawing objects using charcoal pencils or sticks, you can also try out drawing trees and other nature drawings.

Charcoal Drawing Technique: Using Eraser to Find Forms
This technique is completely opposite of the above technique. In the above technique, you are observing the form and drawing it on a plain white paper. For this technique, you will need to bring out the form on a black charcoal patch. To do this, first take a clean sheet of paper, and cover the complete paper with charcoal. Don't make it very dark, keep it medium dark patch. Vine charcoal is suitable for creating this patch. Now, look at the object in front of you, say it is a metal vase. Now, to get the object, use these charcoal shading tips. Then find the shape of the vase in the black patch, by making the background lighter using paper towel. Then once you have found the form, distinguish the dark tones with medium tones, using a kneadable eraser. At this stage you should make the mouth of the vase too. Then use eraser further, to take out some light tones, finally use the white gum eraser to give highlights. To get the shadows, use paper towels or kneadable eraser, to make the background appear lighter and the shadow near the object darker. If you like charcoal drawing techniques, you can also try experimenting with various colored pencil techniques to create beautiful sketches.

These were the various charcoal art tips. So, gather your supplies and start practicing the above charcoal tips, first make some simple still life sketches and, as you gather more skills, make portraits. You can find many drawing tips and video tutorials, that will help you learn the art of charcoal drawing.