Douglas R. Graves - Life Drawing in Charcoal

The charcoal sticks that I recommend for beginners are usually called vine charcoal. Theyre made from straight, fine grained woods like willow, beech, and bass. Sizes vary in thickness from 1/4 to 1/2. Grades are soft, medium, and hard. In an old book, The Craftsmans Handbook by Cennino DAndrea Cennini, the author tells how you may make your own coals, as he calls charcoal. Bundle together nice, dry sticks of willow, about the length of your palm. Tie the bundles in three places, the middle and each end, with a fine copper wire. Take a brand new casserole and fill it with these bundles. Then get a lid for it (luting it with clay so nothing will evaporate). Then, go to the bakers in the evening, after he has quit work, and put this casserole in one of his ovens and let it stay there until morning! Your baker would probably throw you out if you tried such a thing, so Id suggest you buy the ready-made charcoal.

A new brand on the market is made by F. Weber Co. called American Rouget willow. It comes in square sticks. I find that it works very well, behaving like the beautiful French charcoal we used to be able to get.

Compressed charcoal (Siberian charcoal) is potent stuff, too powerful for beginners. Since the value of charcoal is its easy removal with erasers and chamois, the tenacious adhesion of compressed charcoal is undesirable; it doesnt lend itself to the plastic method of drawing that Im going to demonstrate at first. When youre more sure of yourself, then compressed charcoal will be useful. Its virtues, on the other hand, are its rich black color, smoother texture, and more permanent quality. Compressed charcoal is made by grinding charcoal and compressing it with binders such as clay, chalk, soap, tapioca, or other ingredients.

In the early phases of charcoal drawing, Ill advise you to cover your paper with a middle tone. You can do this by using a stick of soft charcoal; but as you zigzag over the page, youll quickly use up the stick. An expedient way of covering your paper is with powdered charcoal sold in paper cans. A can of it will last a long time, because a little bit goes a long way. Lay your paper flat and sprinkle the powder on lightly. Brushing it out with the powder puff will give you a nice middle tone. The powder can also be used to render a complete drawing. By dipping a bristle brush into the powder, you can apply it directly to the drawing and brush it on as a tone. Experiment with it, but be careful or youll wind up looking like a coal miner. (Caution: near an open flame or spark, powdered charcoal can be explosive.)

Charcoal and carbon pencils are about in the same class as compressed charcoal, except that theyre made in the form of a pencil with a wooden sheath and smaller in diameter. They have the same advantages and disadvantages as the sticks of compressed charcoal. Further hindrances are the need to sharpen them constantly, and more importantly, the fact that they wont cover large areas quickly. The small point wont make broad, sweeping passages. But later these smaller drawing tools can be used to accentuate small, pinpoint spots where a large stick of charcoal would be clumsy.