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Charcoal Charcoal is fairly soft and leaves black, powdery marks. It comes in several different forms: the raw unprocessed burnt sticks are ground into powder and mixed with binders and wax to make condensed charcoal sticks, or encased in wood to make charcoal pencils. Natural charcoal can be a messy drawing material that creates a fair amount of black dust but its softness makes it very tactile and easy to manipulate – it can be smudged and erased easily and is very blendable. Charcoal can also be used to create midtone grey paper from white (see page 38), giving you a dusky grey surface from which additional charcoal lines can be erased with just your finger. This means mistakes are easy to correct, which is great for beginners. Colour can be added to the mid-grey surface by using pastels or acrylic paint on top.
AT A GL ANCE: CHARCOAL
> Leaves very dark black marks so is great for use in tonal drawings with strong contrast. > The marks are powdery so they can be manipulated, smudged or erased easily. > Difficult to use for very precise drawing work as it is impossible to get a sharp enough point; condensed charcoal sticks and charcoal pencils are harder, but still much softer than regular graphite pencils. > Typicallyusedonwhitepaperthough try also using it on midtone paper.
THINGS TO CONSIDER ...
> What size sticks do you want to be using? Sticks of charcoal come in a variety of widths from very spindly and thin to large and chunky. The
size of stick to use will depend on the style and look you want – the smaller the work, the smaller the charcoal size you might want to use. > How much to blend? Charcoal is totally blendable – how much you choose to blend away stroke marks is up to you. Sometimes, where precision blending is required, it can be good to use blending sticks instead of your finger. > You will need to use fixative to spray finished works, and charcoal drawings will usually need to be framed to protect them before being displayed. > Charcoal can be a fairly messy material to use and can create a lot of black dust; condensed charcoals and charcoal pencils will create less dust and are generally cleaner to use.
GETTING STARTED CHARCOAL
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STILL LIFE: QUICK DRAW
Orange on table
You will need: > an orange, A3 paper, a stiff board, masking tape, charcoal, a cloth or duster and a retractable rubber or the rubber on the end of a good-quality pencil
Estimated time: 1 hour Medium: charcoal Surface: paper Difficulty rating: 2
1 POSITION YOUR OBJECT
Put an orange on the table in front of you in a space with a good amount of natural light, if possible. Prepare a mid-grey charcoal background (see page 38). Set up your materials and easel, if you have one ( just work flat on a board if you don’t), so that you can comfortably see both the subject and your drawing at the same time.
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2 DRAW AN OUTLINE
3 FIND THE MAIN AREAS OF LIGHT AND DARK
Start by drawing the outline of the round shape of the orange as best you can, paying attention to any lumps, bumps and irregularities in the shape. Get the stump of the stalk roughly in place, paying close attention to how far it is from the outline. By working like this in charcoal on a mid-grey background, you should be able to rub away lines with your hand if you make a mistake so there is no need for a rubber until you start shading.
Look at your orange and think about where the main lights and darks are, and where the light is coming from. The orange in the photo is on a table next to a window so the strong light is coming from the right. This means that the orange looks lighter on the right than on the left. The pink lines roughly divide the areas of different tones, including the shadow the orange leaves on the table. These lines are the basis for the shading plan.
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4 DRAW YOUR SHADING PLAN Draw around the areas of light, medium and dark in the orange outline you have drawn. Also draw around the outline of the areas of shadow on the table, ready for filling in.
5 SHADE THE OBJECT
Shading of the object itself is called primary shading and the shading of the background is called secondary shading. Now use your charcoal to fill in the dark and medium areas of the orange, blending the charcoal with your fingers so that it looks fairly smooth. For the light areas, such as near the top of the
orange where light is reflecting off the shiny surface, use a rubber to remove the mid-grey surface charcoal. In the original photo, notice that the bottom left-hand edge of the orange is slightly lighter than the table.
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