Charcoal Drawing – For Amazingly Realistic Art…

Most artists have an affair — with charcoal!!

Maybe it’s because charcoal drawings are speedy, or perhaps because the ultimate results are quite impressive.

Whatever the reasons for its popularity may be, charcoal is regarded as one of the most brilliant tools that art enthusiasts could begin their journey with drawing. If you are one among such art novices, we know you might have a lot of questions to ask.

So, through this article, we will share a few essential tips on charcoal drawing, which will have you fall in love with it!

• Stay Focused On A Concept

“The foremost point is to keep the main thing the main thing,” and when artistically speaking, that ‘main thing’ is called the ‘essence’ of your drawing!

When starting with an artwork, settle on what your picture will be about, and what you aspire to speak through it. After that, make sure each and every move you put in or leave out while drawing on your canvas board, add to that aspect of your work.

• Pick Distinct Values

When it comes to art, the term ‘value’ gets thrown around a lot and can seem pretty confusing. So, let’s make it more transparent…

What we mean by ‘value’ in the drawing is just a walk from light to dark, or white to black, on a scale of 1 to 10. This implies that 1 is all white shade while 10 is all black; so, a 5 is a medium grey, which is halfway between white and black.

In charcoal designs, the rule is that you should work from accents or darker shades to highlights or lighter shades.

• Navigate The Viewers’ Focus

An image is said to be successful when it is quickly read and touched the viewer emotionally.

Employing the above-mentioned value technique, and allotting different areas of your drawing to lesser or darker tones, an artist can direct the viewer to a particular section of the image he wants his audience to see initially.

• Squinting Helps!

Yes, 20/20 vision is helpful, but sometimes it may not be!

So try squinting your eyes just a bit. This will blur your picture’s values and let you view a further simplified version of the image you are looking at overall. This way, you will be able to identify the missing values in your painting, thereby uplifting your drawing’s overall essence.

• Explore The Possibilities Of Lines

In a charcoal drawing, if you draw all lines in the same width, applying the same pressure on your canvas panel, the final result may be a monotonous and dull image.

So it’s extremely important that you use thick and thin lines effectively in your art.

For that, keep an eye on the rule of thumb – those lines which are on top of things should be thinner as light is hitting them, and those lines which are underneath objects can be thicker as shadows are sitting there. That’s it!

• Using an Eraser

The coolest thing about charcoal is that it could be easily removed or erased from the canvas whenever needed.

The most common type of eraser used for removing unwanted highlights is the kneaded eraser.

• Kit Yourself With Required Tools

The tools for charcoal art are mainly – a high-quality artist canvas, (if you aim for fine art) or normal canvas (if you wish to go for regular sketching), a fine-line eraser, a kneaded eraser that can be bent and squashed, and a hardcore eraser pen for carrying out heavy lifting erasing jobs.

Practicing charcoal art requires us to ‘move’ or ‘apply’ the medium, and your finger itself is the tool to accomplish this!

Equipping yourself with Webril Wipe is also necessary for applying a large mass of charcoal in one stroke.

• Gloves Are Must!

As charcoal spreads quickly, open hands can smudge your canvas, ruining your entire picture. Also, there are chances for oils from the hand getting mixed with the dust and discolor the canvas.

So, wearing gloves is a must when proceeding with charcoal drawing.

• No Compromise On Fixatives!

Charcoal is easy to dust and erase; hence, the generous use of fixatives is highly recommended to prevent smudging and keep the charcoal dust in place.

…And that’s pretty much it! So now it’s time for charcoaling!

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