Drawing with charcoal is a great way to learn how to blend. Charcoal is a type of semi-permanent medium, so it’s best to know what your doing before you get started. Here we’ll provide you with some great tips and tricks to use when drawing with charcoal.

First, we’ll help you understand what made charcoal a favored medium. There have been many artists through the years who have used charcoal in their work.

Where Charcoal Became Popular

Charcoal has been one of the most popular mediums of art over time. People have been using charcoal since the beginning of art. Through the Renaissance until today, artists have been using this medium to make fantastic art.

Use in the early days

Historians believe that the cave drawings made by early humans were likely made with charcoal sticks. They burned the sticks in fires to make the charcoal and discovered that it was great for drawing. As people progressed, we perfected the craft.

During the Renaissance era, art became more popular as a medium. One of the first artists to utilize charcoal was Albrecht Durer.

He was well known for his ink drawing and woodcuts but became well known for his charcoal drawing Knight, Death, and the Devil he made for the Nazi Rally in Nuremberg.

Our 5 Tips

Artists took after their forefathers as the years went by, creating many pieces of charcoal art. You too, can be like these artists and create your charcoal masterpieces. Use these five drawing tips to make your craft as beautiful as you can.

1. The Values of Light and Dark

The best thing to do is to learn the values of your charcoal pencils. Each pencil has specific darkness to it. Before you get started, make a few marks on a separate page and study the shade of your pencils.

When you create your drawing, it will have shadows that have different values to them. Use your knowledge of the lightness of your pencils to gauge the darkness of your shadows.

2. Make it Blend

Since you now understand the darkness of your charcoal pencils, it’s time to learn how to blend. Using a tissue or napkin rub the charcoal on the paper in the direction you want it to move. You can make the lines smooth out by making small circles with the tissue.

Use this technique to alter the values of the drawing and make it look more realistic. When you first make your lines, they will be rough, so this technique is necessary for excellent illustrations.

3. Guide the Eye

When creating your piece, try to imagine the way the viewer will see the image. Using directional ques and values, you can guide the viewer to know what you want them to see. Think back to Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

All of the subjects in the image are looking in the direction of Jesus. So no matter where the viewer starts on the image, they will always end up looking at Jesus. Use this technique to tell the story of your piece and make your subjects stand out more by adding more shadow to them.

4. Lose the 20/20

Often there is way to much detail coming in from an image to accurately display it on your page. Instead, you can squint at the image you’re drawing to see the main details of the picture. Use these essential details to display your image accurately. Then you can fill in the details afterward.

5. Layer

Drawing with charcoal is a bit like painting. The best way to make your drawing look exactly how you want it to is to layer your values. Where in paint you layer the colors and blend them to make the image, you layer the darkness of your charcoal drawing and blend them.

You’ll feel a necessity to draw your subject first and then fill in the background. You have to go against your gut in this situation. Fill in the background first and then move forward until you reach your subject.

On to the Art Process

With these expert drawing tips, you should have a much better time with your charcoal drawing than you would otherwise. Charcoal drawings are a great medium and strike the individual with great expression. You can do a lot with charcoal, so have fun with it!

Did we help you to make your charcoal drawings with our expert drawing tips? Lets us know in the comments below!