What type of Charcoal should an Artist use when sketching and or drawing with charcoal graphite?

Many artists interested in drawing with charcoal usually ask the question, “What is the right way to sketch using charcoal?”

In reality, there are many items of issue to consider for drawing and or illustrating. Therefore, a precise or straight forward response is impracticable.

One of the first items of issue when drawing with charcoal is choosing what type of charcoal you should use to sketch your art work. You can use charcoal in natural sticks of willow and vine or charcoal compressed in various grades, either in stick or pencil form.

To answer the question of what type of charcoal should you be using, you must determine what style you want to draw. Do you want a smooth slightly faint smudged look or a strong and intense expression with very little smudging?

You can achieve a strong and deeply concentrated representation drawing with very little smudging using compressed charcoal sticks.

On the lighter side, you can achieve soft and easily smudging portrayal drawing with the Willow and Vine charcoals sticks.

When you want to sketch artwork with a variant of styles, you should select medium or soft grade charcoal pencils.

Solid charcoals depict a somewhat abrasive rendering, yet are excellent for lines on a heavyweight paper.

You should be knowledgeable about the variable charcoal forms available.

Wikipedia quotes:

Vine charcoal is created by burning sticks of wood (usually willow or linden/Tilia) into soft, medium, and hard consistencies.

Powdered charcoal is often used to “tone” or cover large sections of a drawing surface. Drawing over the toned areas will darken it further, but the artist can also lighten (or completely erase) within the toned area to create lighter tones.

Compressed charcoal powder mixed with gum binder compressed into round or square sticks. The amount of binder determines the hardness of the stick. Compressed charcoal is used in charcoal pencils.

The most popular are charcoal compressed pencils, Carbone pencils and chunks.

Carbon pencils provide a velvety smoother touch from their mixture of charcoal and graphite with an oilier binder. It transfers attractive, velvety blacks with slightly less charcoal smudging and creates a much cleaner sketching method.

Charcoal sketch artwork normally must be preserved by applying (spraying) of a fixative liquid varnish like sealer that prevents inadvertent smudging.

Additionally, an artist can level layers of a drawing in progress by adding a ‘Fixative’ coating.

Please Note:

Wikipedia quotes:

Fixative is available in aerosol sprays. Also in a more friendly version for lungs and the environment is a liquid fixative that can be used from the bottle via a manual Spray Diffuser.

About.Com Quotes:

Charcoal pencils are basically compressed charcoal, but the timber casing keeps your hands clean, and they are easy to sharpen for fine work. However, they wear out quickly if you are shading big areas.

Carbone pencils are made from an oiler, sooty carbon that gives rich blacks like charcoal but without the dust. They smear a little but don’t smudge and are dustless, so are good for sketchbooks or when you don’t want to use fixative.

For more details see About.com link below:

Choosing your charcoal supplies:

1. Winsor & Newton Willow Charcoal

This charcoal renders stunning, velvety grays and very easily erases with the slightest touch-up.

2. Coates Premium Artist Willow Charcoal

This charcoal renders easy to erase slight and soft grays that sometimes can create variations in texture and tone. Coates charcoals are affordable and available in varying thicknesses from 4mm thin willow up to a tree stick of around 20mm thickness, including a box of assorted sticks.

3. The General’s Charcoal Pencils

This charcoal offers vivid blacks blending and erasing rather easy. These standard timber pencils have a very dry and almost scratchy touch. Popular sizes are 4B and 6B pencils. The 2B is to a certain extent hard and tends to scrape.

4. Wolff’s Carbon Pencil

This charcoal is made from a combination of charcoal and graphite. Carbon pencils have a smoother, almost oily touch versus charcoal pencils. These pencils render superb, like velvet blacks and are clean to use. Carbon pencils do not smudge as easily as charcoal.

5. Conte Compressed Charcoal Sticks

This type of charcoal renders a versatile expression and is one of the most popular among many artists. It is particularly widespread in figure drawing. Compressed charcoals of this type provide blending resonant blacks that hold fast that can be difficult to erase, depending on the paper. You can experiment with the solidity variables including medium soft comparative to very soft.

6. General’s Charcoal Chunks

The chunks’ style allows easy rendering for a huge amount charcoal achieved quickly such as for sketching, large human figure drawing and bold strokes. This type is notable for large drawings done rapidly with heaps of charcoal on heavy brown craft paper or watercolor paper and for artists who are not afraid of getting their hands dirty.

7. Cretacolor Charcoal Drawing Set

The Cretacolor, Charcoal Drawing Set is a good choice for a gift or when enabling a variable in choices for sketch rendering. Customarily, it will contain charcoal and Nero pencils, graphite sticks, and five grades of compressed charcoal, willow charcoal, a charcoal block, kneaded eraser and Tortillon. Cretacolor, Nero drawing pencils are ideal for sketching, drafting, painting, and easily combines with colored pastels. They are popular among artists from students to working professionals. Nero pencils contain natural oily waxes. They produce an extra smooth, glossy stroke that is water resistant. It is available in five lead grades. Tinned sets are advantageous to keep materials organized.

8. General’s Powdered Charcoal

This charcoal is a fine grained powered especially used for sign writer artists and draftsmen. It is excellent for snap lines and pounce transfer process. Powdered charcoal is usually used for transferring patterns and pouncing, but it is also popular with art students for ‘hands-on’, expressive, large-scale charcoal drawing. It is quite untidy to use it! It is a pure, artist quality powdered charcoal, extra soft and rich black. This charcoal is ideal for covering large areas and for mixed media applications. This charcoal can be applied with finger, chamois, or dry brush. It can also be used with sculpting mixture.

To Be Continued…..

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