Getting Started With Charcoal Artwork

As one grows as an artist, the connection between their artwork and charcoal painting materials they choose becomes noticeable. Charcoal artwork is a lot of fun because it gives you the freedom to make big, sweeping movements across the sketching sheet while getting messy. If you're interested in learning how to draw with charcoal, you want to invest in some quality charcoal painting materials to accelerate your artistic development.

 

Hard or Soft Charcoal?

Just like ordinary pencils, charcoal comes in different varieties of hardness. The hardness rating is denoted using a number and a letter (H for hard, B for soft). 6B is often the softest, while HB is the hardest.

The harder the charcoal one uses, the lighter the line it produces on the drawing sheet. It's worth noting that softer charcoals produce dark lines that smudge easily, while their harder counterparts make cleaner, sharper edges.

 

Vine Charcoal

You can also opt for uncompressed charcoal, which comes in the form of vines. Like the name suggests, vine charcoal comes in the form of a burnt vine/willow branch. Unlike compressed charcoal, you'll find it in the form of long sticks that are harder and more delicate than the former. It also comes in varying thicknesses, from thin to jumbo size. Vines are ideal for creating very fine, light lines and shading throughout a sketch.

 

Drawing Paper

For most new artists, newsprint works as an economical drawing material where they can practice as much as they want to perfect their technique. While newsprint allows charcoal to produce a variety of marks, it tends to smudge easily due to the smooth paper. You could therefore opt for charcoal paper which as a fine-ribbed texture that highlights the charcoal's color. While you might make the occasional smudge, it creates a harder line drawing than a smoother sheet would. Experimenting by mixing and matching different charcoal and paper varieties will help you find the right combination for your style.

 

Work Area

When familiarizing yourself with a new drawing medium like charcoal, you want to work on a vertical surface. This reduces the likelihood of dragging your arm through the drawing. Besides, charcoal drawings are quite dark, which means highlights and details can be hard to see in shadow. Your best option would be to place an easel in a well-lit area so that you can make out all the details while getting the practice you need.

 

Eraser

Your best choice of eraser when working with charcoal is the kneaded eraser. Being quite soft, it can be molded easily by kneading it like clay. You can use it to remove a section of the drawing to create a highlight or as a blending tool when smudging charcoal into the finer parts of a drawing.

 Charcoal artwork is an easy technique to pick up, mainly due to the medium's forgiving nature. And you can try other charcoal painting materials as you please -- exploration is an integral part of the creative process. So start drawing with charcoal today and see what world you can open-up.

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