What is charcoal and how to draw with it. How to draw with charcoal and what is needed for this? Explore thick and thin lines

Charcoal is one of the most basic drawing tools. Like a pencil, it has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. To get the most out of the material, you can learn a few basic charcoal drawing techniques for beginners to start sketching with confidence.

Generally, charcoal is great for sketching. It comes in a variety of hardness levels that allow you to quickly move your hand across the paper, mix easily, and transfer fine details when needed.

Common charcoal drawing techniques and tools

First, you need several types of coal. Charcoal comes in two different forms: charcoal and pressed. It is important to know the difference between them.

From left to right: charcoal, pressed black charcoal and pressed white charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is a soft stick, very light. It weighs almost nothing and moves easily across the paper. Because it's light, you won't get a dark black. Instead, you'll want to use charcoal for drawing and blending.

Pressed coal

Pressed charcoal looks more like a pencil—in fact, it's often made in the form of a pencil! Here the coal is packed very tightly. Difficult to mix and difficult to wash. Compressed charcoal is best for subtle details and when you need a bold shadow.
You can also find white pressed charcoal which works well for highlights and accents.

Klyachka - an eraser for coal

This eraser strongly resembles plasticine - you can shape it with your fingers and use it in reductive drawings. To clean the eraser, just remember it in your hands. You will feel like a child again!

5 charcoals you need to know

With charcoal, pressed charcoal, and nag in your arsenal, you can start trying out three simple charcoal painting techniques. You can then combine them into more interesting compositions. Experiment on rough paper.

Mixing charcoal

Charcoal is great as a base for your drawing; you can cover your composition with charcoal and grind it into paper with your fingers. You can then put more charcoal on top or rub it in again.

Pressed charcoal line drawing

Pressed charcoal is best left for fine lines, intricate detail, and achieving bold blacks. Because charcoal is very dense, it does not move around as easily as charcoal. Although you can sketch with them, pressed charcoal is not ideal for quick drawings where your hand must move at lightning speed. Rather, it is best for work where you draw lines, especially since pressed charcoal is difficult to erase.

Nag drawing

Have you ever tried to draw The drawing nag is perfect! First create a base layer with charcoal, then use a blot to remove some of the charcoal, creating an image with contrasting lines.
This tool won't remove lines as cleanly as a regular eraser, but it can pick up extra charcoal. I like to put it in the tip and use it as an eraser.

Layers of pressed and charcoal

Start by painting with charcoal as your base. Rub it with your finger. Then draw more precise details with pressed charcoal. For a special accent, use white pressed charcoal.

Combining all methods into one composition

Here coal shows all its possibilities. When you combine charcoal, pressed charcoal and paint nag, you get a better feel for your painting. You can achieve this in a number of ways, but start by mixing charcoal on your paper. Then, using a nag, paint the image, removing the layer of charcoal. Finish the pressed charcoal composition by adding subtle detail lines and highlights.

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The skill of some artists transcends all boundaries. They paint with anything: oils, acrylics, charcoal, ballpoint pens or a simple pencil - but their work is indistinguishable from photographs. Considerable perseverance and talent of the authors make these works something more than just photocopies. They contain life, the vision of the artist, emotions and the illusion of the world in which we live.

website collected 15 artists, looking at the work of which we literally do not believe our eyes.

Diego Fazio

Diego works like an inkjet printer, starting from the edge of the sheet. Draws with a simple pencil and charcoal. It takes the artist 200 hours of work to create one portrait.

Gregory Tilker

Gregory Tilker paints his "rainy" canvases with a brush, using watercolor and oil paints. Viewing Gregory's paintings is like traveling by car on a cold rainy day.

Ruth Tyson

British artist Ruth Tyson, like many of her colleagues, has no art education, but she has an original manner of performing her works. She draws with graphite and watercolor pencils, but sometimes she also takes on paints.

Roberto Bernardi

It's hard to believe that the "sweet" still lifes of Roberto Bernardi are not filmed. Each still life with amazing accuracy conveys reflections on the glossy surface of the table, folds and highlights.

Robin Eley

The London-based artist creates large-scale realistic oil paintings. In the paintings of this collection, the artist gracefully “hides” the nakedness of human bodies with a transparent film.

Gottfried Helnwein

Helnwein mostly uses watercolors in his work. He works as a painter, draftsman, photographer, sculptor and artist, revealing all aspects of his talent.

Vincent Fatauzzo

The works of the famous Australian artist Vincent Fatauzzo are exhibited all over the world. The portrait of Heath Ledger was painted a few weeks before the death of the actor.

Camalchi Laureano

Kamalchi Laureano is a talented Dominican artist. He uses the technique of painting with acrylic paints on canvas. For him, work is not just an imitation of photography, but an imitation of life.

Paul Cadden

Thomas Arvid

Thomas has no formal education. Having gained mastery in his own system of education, the artist came to his theme - the theme of wine. This is how Thomas Arvid's Wine Cellar was born - a series of works depicting bottles, corks, corkscrews and glasses with sparkling drinks.

As a material, coal has been used for many centuries. Its analogue was drawn in ancient Greece. Craftsmen created "charcoal" by mixing charred willow branches, nuts and grapes. The history of the graphite pencil dates back to 16th century England.

Pencil and charcoal are materials with different characteristics. The first is a hard instrument, the second is a soft one. The technique of drawing with these materials differs, first of all, because of these properties. Charcoal, unlike a pencil, is not used for detailed objects. Soft material is intended for sketches, sketches, modeling of chiaroscuro.

Charcoal should be used on paper with a rough surface. Otherwise, the material will not adhere well to the base and quickly crumble. You can draw with a pencil on the most ordinary paper.

Beginning artists are recommended to use graphite pencils to master the drawing. You can easily control the line, erase failed details, drawing them again. With coal, these manipulations will not work. It lends itself well to correction, but can leave unpleasant dark spots. To master both tools, you should familiarize yourself with the basic techniques for using them.

Pencil: Basic Drawing Techniques

The main pencil drawing technique is the line. Depending on the texture of the paper and the type of instrument, it can be clear, pronounced or barely noticeable. A pencil allows you to qualitatively feel and master. The clarity of the line also depends on the pressure on the tool. With a single pencil, you can change the intensity of the contour, highlighting the most important points.

Another technique is hatching with a transition of tone. When creating it with a pencil, you need to smoothly change the pressure on the entire area selected for toning. Creating beautiful hatching the first time is very difficult, but constant practice and ease of adjustment will help you quickly master the commonly used graphic technique.

Drawing with charcoal

The main technique of drawing with charcoal is working with the tone of the image. It will take much less time to master it than when working with a pencil. However, there are some tricks here.

When creating a shadow or working with depth, one should not draw in the same way as with a graphite tool - vary the degree of pressure. Start from the darkest place and, gradually weakening, draw only 1/3 of the intended space. Next, using a napkin or finger, blend the material in the desired direction.

If you decide to work with charcoal on the principle of a pencil, you will get a sad result: the tinting will quickly lose its properties and turn into a dark monochromatic spot.

Please note: coal is practically not used to draw even, smooth lines. With its help, basically, toning is created, and depth is also given to the picture. In this case, the initial sketch is often done in pencil (thin dashed lines).

Coal works require careful handling and storage. To keep the image without deformation, it should be placed under glass. You can also use a special fixative or simple hairspray.

Plants are an invariable component of landscapes and most still lifes. Today we will consider drawing irises with charcoal. Follow the tips of the tutorial - from the location of the object on the sheet to the last stroke - and you will be able to masterfully draw a flower

DRAW WITH CHARCOAL

This drawing tool has many different forms. In this picture, from bottom to top, there are: a cylinder-shaped stick of natural drawing charcoal; a stick of natural drawing coal of a rectangular shape; charcoal pencil; another kind of charcoal pencil is in a paper frame, which you tear off a little as the tip of the pencil wears off; and a cylindrical stick of coal in a metal frame. Natural drawing charcoal lays well on paper and is easily rubbed, so they can achieve expressive top effects; The charcoal pencil is able to create crisper stumps and strokes, but they don't rub as easily.

The use of shading and soft matter.

To grind coal strokes and apply tone in narrow places, shadings of various sizes are designed. They are made of tightly rolled paper, with conical or sharp tips. Use the tapered end to work in small areas. A crumpled soft cloth can be used to erase bad spots in a natural charcoal drawing. (The chalk mark is harder to erase.) You can also rub the tone over a large area of ​​the drawing with a piece of soft cloth.

How to hold coal.

When a piece of natural charcoal breaks or wears down to a small piece, you can buy a frame and place the remaining piece in it. Hold the rim of the charcoal as if you were holding a brush; fingers should be located away from the tip of the charcoal stick, so you get distinct lines. If you are working with just a charcoal sharpener, without a rim, hold it in the same way, but the fingers must be closer to the tip, otherwise the sharpening will break. A charcoal pencil is also held, but you can hold it. like a regular pencil.

Rubber bands (erasers).

Coal is easily erased, and when working with it, artists use plastic gum. In the store, you can recognize it by its square shape. It stretches like clay or putty, and takes on any shape. You can roll a large ball to clean large areas of the design, or sharpen the rubber band to work on small details. By pressing and immediately removing the elastic, you will remove most of the tones. Rubbing with such an elastic band should be as light as possible and only in extreme cases, since this leads to abrasion of the surface of the paper.

Drawing lines and strokes.

The easiest way to draw with charcoal is to combine thin lines with broader strokes on regular drawing paper. On this fragment of the landscape, the thick blunt end of a charcoal pencil marks the tone on the trunks of three trees with free strokes. The artist darkens the tones on the trunks with stronger pressure. Then, with a sharp, thin tip of a hard charcoal pencil, he draws branches and twigs in sharper lines.

Paper designed for drawing with charcoal.

Paper intended for drawing with charcoal, but equally suitable for working with chalk and pencil, has a slightly corrugated and very dense surface. On such a surface, soft, lively tones are perfectly obtained by shading, as you can see in this portrait fragment. You will not spoil the paper even with frequent erasure, which is visible in the illuminated areas of the face. The surface of the paper is suitable for drawing wide strokes, which are used to draw hair, and for clear lines, which are the eyes depicted here.

Drawing lines and tones.

To create soft, delicate tones, the artist works with hard and medium-hard charcoal pencils, rubbing the strokes with the help of shading. First, he applies lighter tones to tree trunks and rubs the strokes, then darker ones and rubs them again. On thick branches, the strokes are rubbed with the tip of the shading, and thin branches are drawn with a charcoal pencil and not rubbed. It's important to know when to stop feathering, otherwise your drawing will look messy.

Paper with a rough surface.

Paper with a rough texture, with even more so-called teeth, is also great for drawing with charcoal. Thanks to the uneven surface of the paper, the feathered areas look more alive - pay attention to the texture of the shadow on the skin. The broad strokes with which the hair is drawn are even more distinct on this type of paper. And the sharp, honed lines that depict eyelashes and eyebrows look uneven and alive.

A coordinate grid will help you position objects on paper. Once you've sketched, try drawing with a charcoal pencil.

Look around in your house - and you will certainly see things that make an interesting composition.

Arrangement of objects in the figure
Sometimes even a professional artist finds it difficult to correctly determine the relative sizes and proportions of objects. The solution to the problem can be a coordinate grid applied to a sheet of paper, which is placed behind the still life. This cut is also applied to another sheet prepared for the drawing. Since the coordinate grid placed behind the still life is applied on a white background, not only the objects themselves will be clear, but also the shadows they cast. However, in this lesson, we will be primarily interested in the volume of objects, and we will deal with shadows in the next drawing lessons.

D for the drawing lesson you will need:
Sheet of white cardboard measuring 43 cm high and 1 m or more wide
Large sheet of paper
Adhesive masking tape
metal ruler
Eraser
Pencils: 2B and charcoal
Knife or pencil sharpener

Grid layout
Mark vertical lines 20 cm from each edge of the cardboard. Cut the sheet along these lines, and then stick the cut strips in place with duct tape. You will have two bendable sides with which you can install this screen. Now take a 2B pencil and draw a frame in the center of the screen, placing it as close as possible to the bottom edge of the cardboard.

Draw horizontal and vertical lines, breaking the frame into squares. In our case, we get 8 × 8 cm squares. Now place the objects selected for the drawing and behind them - a screen with a coordinate grid.

Smoothing tones
Charcoal has a powdery texture, so it is best to draw on a rough, textured surface that will hold grains of powder. When you master a new material, try drawing with charcoal on paper with a very pronounced texture. A large grain of such paper will give your drawing more expressiveness.

How to use a charcoal pencil
The contours of our drawing are drawn with a 2B pencil, which is easily erased with an eraser, but our own shadows are made with a charcoal pencil, which allows you to draw bold dark lines.

Take a charcoal pencil and move it across the paper to see what lines it leaves. First, do not press on the pencil, then press a little and compare the drawn lines. Try shading with a charcoal pencil in different directions, see how the texture of the stroke changes. Soon you will master hatching with a charcoal pencil and begin to use it in the same way as a graphite one.

1 Draw a grid on a piece of paper

Take a 2B pencil and draw another grid on a piece of paper. You need to split the sheet into the same number of squares as on the grid screen. Only the squares on the sheet will be smaller - in our case 6x6 cm.

2 Let's start the drawing with a bottle

Since the bottle is the tallest object in our composition, we will start the drawing from it. Use a 2B pencil. Take a good look at where and how the contours of the bottle intersect with the squares behind the coordinate grid. Check the correctness of each line by putting it on a piece of paper.

3 We correlate the drawing with a still life

Continue drawing the bottle - don't forget its flip cap - constantly checking the grid. Draw the outline with small strokes, and not with one solid line, so as not to be mistaken.

Adding other items
Having outlined the location on the paper of the first object - in our case it is a bottle - you can now add other objects standing nearby. Keep drawing the contours using the coordinate grid, and then you will be able to maintain the correct proportions of all objects.

4 Draw a glass

Outline the glass, still referring to the grid. The glass is in front of the bottle, that is, closer to you, so on paper its bottom will be located just below the bottom of the bottle.

5 We are planning a coffee pot

Following, as before, the coordinate grid, outline the outline of the coffee pot. Carefully study its shape and make the lines clearer in those places where the shadow lay. Correcting the contour of the coffee pot with an eraser, you could accidentally erase the lines of the coordinate grid - do not forget to restore them.

6 Finishing the sketch with a pencil

Draw the details of the coffee pot. Now you have a preliminary sketch ready, a group of objects with the correct proportions, which means you can move on to the charcoal pencil.

Work with a water-soluble pencil
If you want to add color to your drawing, you can do so with a water-soluble pencil. The finished drawing in this case will resemble watercolor. When the paper is dry, go back to the water-soluble pencil and add new strokes.

7 Putting shadows on the bottle

See which side the light falls on your still life. Then take a sharpened charcoal pencil and apply a few light, thick strokes to the bottle, without touching the parts where the highlights should be (how to distribute light and dark tones was described in issue number 1 of our magazine).

8 Give volume to the glass

First, draw the bottle cap with a sharp pencil tip, then move on to the glass. Shade the shadow on the right side of the glass and on its bottom with frequent lines. Cover the rest of the surface with lighter strokes. Do not paint over areas that are exposed to light.

9 Draw a coffee pot

Cover the finished half of the drawing with a sheet of paper so as not to smear it. Then start shading the coffee pot, leaving white vertical streaks of highlights.

10 Strengthen the shadows on the coffee pot

Gradually increase the shadows on the coffee pot. Cover the white stripes with light strokes - you should only have narrow sparkling highlights.

A Grid
A coordinate grid helps to arrange objects exactly as they are in reality and maintain their proportions. When the drawing is ready, the coordinate grid on a sheet of paper can be removed with an eraser.

B Coal
The contours drawn with a 2B pencil are completely hidden under the hatching made with a charcoal pencil. Charcoal shadows are deeper and more intense than graphite pencil shadows.

B Bulkness
Having sketched the objects, the artist at the next stage of work tries to give them volume and emphasize the rounded shape, the convex surface of the objects. This is achieved through a combination of shadows, midtones and highlights.

Categories: August 22, 2011