Hi Folks. I've dabbled a little in pencil drawings but nothing I'm that pleased with I would share just yet.

Anyhooo, I picked up some charcoals the other day and was amazed just how quickly I could put a drawing together - just from a photo of a carved wooden head and I found doing the shading and values so much easier than pencil.

So I thought I would ask the more experienced users out there for their tips.

Go to it folks . . . . !!!

Charcoal, as you've found, can give quick loose drawings, but it also can give you great detail. It all depends in how you use it in terms of strokes and pressure, what type of charcoal you use and what effect you want.

Charcoal is also available in different types of wood, either willow or grape vine being the most common and it comes in several ranges from hard to very soft. You can also buy charcoal pencils which are great for detail work and less messy to work with.

Carbon is an oilier version of charcoal and gives VERY black marks, but is less easy to manipulate in terms of blending.

Charcoal is usually used on a paper that has some tooth to it which gives the charcoal something to cling to. You can draw on a toned paper which becomes your middle value, then apply the charcoal as the darks and white charcoal or pastel as your highlights.

You can use charcoal to tone a piece of paper and draw out shapes and values using a kneaded eraser and add more charcoal to increase the darks.

Charcoal also comes in powdered form which is useful to apply when you want to tone a larger surface. You can apply it with a brush or blend it with a chamois or tissue.

Charcoal needs to be sprayed with fixative to secure your drawing or it will smear. When drawing with charcoal, work left to right (if you're right handed) so you don't smudge your work and always use a hand guard.

Thanks Jeanette - I didn't realise there were so many types. I have pencils and I never gave a thought to working from L-R but it turned out pretty clean anyway even though it nearly filled an A4. I did a very rough outline first to make sure I had everything in proportion (it's a buddha) and was working on little bits all around it. It's in an inexpensive sketch pad I bought and the paper has a little texture so that helped.

I struggle to make an 'exact' likeness of what I am drawing but I cover that up by saying it's my interpretation! It worked for Dali ha ha!!!!!!

I have some more work to do around the eyes and mouth as they are not quite realistic enough and then I'll call it finished or I will probably carry on and spoil it. I'm not sure when I will next get to my local art shop but I've heard hairspray is a reasonable substitute for proper fixative. As it's my first real attempt and the materials are inexpensive I won't be too precious over it should it not do as good a job.

At the moment, my Buddha is against a plan white background (i.e. the unused paper) and I'm wondering if I should at least lightly shade all around him and then blend it well into a kind of misty hazy background to give it some 'atmosphere' and put something a bit firmer underneath him? He looks like he's just levitatiing in mid-air at the moment.

Thanks for your tips. I'm hoping to enrol in an evening class for a couple of hours weekly in the new year. That will make sure I regularly get some time (my own space!) each week to practice. The other half sometimes feels left out if I do too much in the week as I get so absorbed I'm nearly not even here at all

Charcoal is lots of fun! I found I didn't like it to much when in a drawing class and had to do big loose still life drawing. But once I tried it on my own applying it like paint, I really liked it! If you are working with the vine/willow charcoal, heavy tooth paper is really a must to hold the charcoal, It comes off very easy even with the tooth. Compressed and the pencil type do not come off very well the end result is more like ink.. you mess up, it may not come off. Qtips,stubs and the kneaded erasers are you friend! Also you can sharpen your vine or willow charcoal, just make sure you use pencil sharpener that will catch the shavings..
Here are a couple of example of the kind of detail you can get with charcoal and I am no expert! I have only done 5 drawings with charcoal all of them are 8x12
Sorry for the repost for those who have seen these before..

"No expert"? Are you ******* kidding me?
I know false modesty when I see it. Someone is fishing for a compliment.
Consider said compliment hooked and reeled :-)

I have only used charcoal twice but I do like the medium. the first time i just did an outline and it made the project look unfinished. the second time i smudged the whole thing to smooth it out. i liked it because of its smoothness but after going back to it a few days later it kinda sunk in how crappy it really was. it lost all 3d and almost looked like a sticker.

so the only cheap advice i can give is be careful and dont lose those subtle tones. its very easy to make something look like a sticker if you start smudging. dont leave it all 1 tone