Do you use charcoal in your art?

Question

When you draw, do you use only charcoal? I haven't yet. What's your opinion on charcoal? Where do you get your supplies?

Do you have any idea what kind of art supplies Edward Gorey uses on his canvases and stuff?

Answer 1

When I took some art classes in college I used charcoal, and it was a very expressive medium for so-called gesture drawings, particularly figure drawing.

However, the difficulty is that you need to use some kind of fixative to preserve the detail, particularly if its going to rub against other pages. Unlike acrylic, which is fairly tamper-proof, charcoal drawings smear very easily if no fixative is applied. The fixative can be sprayed on, potentially reducing the fine granularity of the strokes.

I expect just about any art supply store will carry them, most likely in a small cardboard box. The sticks are manufactured at such a length that you tend to need to break them in half before use.

In my own work I haven't used charcoal very much, except occassionally as a way of re-acquianting myself with the basics of artistic dynamism (heavy words, I know, but I don't know what else to call it--shapes, worlds, the stuff that could work if it were just put into color).

Fundamentally, you just need to decide for yourself whether you like the feel of the medium. Its very dry and brittle, so I would say its suitable in cases where you want to get "technical".

Answer 2

You have had some really good answers so far.
I, personally agree that charcoal is best for gesture drawing. The advantage is in using it at different angles so that you can get a large variety of stroke widths. You may not even like it at first, but give it a fair chance because it takes a little while to even learn how to control it, depending on the type of charcoal you are using. Vine charcoal is good if you like to stick to a line that is close to uniform, but soft charcoal is good if you are ready to experiment with laying down lots of value at a time.
Once you are really comfortable with the medium, and are ready to do some very detailed portraits, you will want to try using a kneaded eraser to pick up the charcoal and add highlights- it is a great trick.

Answer 3

I've tried charcoal before and though its pretty dirty to work with, its really fun especially when you want to study on lighting and space. For me I always use the key word for lighting which is Chiaroscuro (means light and dark in Italian)

Try to use charcoal along with an eraser. Eraser is used to eliminate the dark area of your drawing and to create a light(er) area of your work. Create a high, medium to low key scale of your charcoal for your reference. If you want to work on a geometrical stuff, paper stenciling is a good way to start with.

You can get charcoal from your local artshop and they will have a few ranges of charcoal to choose from. You can try to buy a small box of black charcoal sticks for a start. And buy a thick art paper too!

For this matter, I love to refer the work from Renoir since he's an expert on lighting.

Answer 4

I love using charcoal when I'm working on portraits. I just love the way you can handle it using even your fingers or cotton. It creates fantastic shadows and gives a great fading result when needed. I use 3 types of charcoal: soft, medium and hard. It depends on the feature I want to draw.

Answer 5

I like using charcoal. Compressed charcoal has oil in it so it you make a mark with it, it is permanent. Willow charcoal is very soft so you can smudge it. It's great for getting tone into drawings. It is a very messy medium though and you need to fix any drawings with hairspray or something or it smudges off and you get marks everywhere.

Answer 6

I have charcoal pencils from the brand "Generals" and they're really good. If you want to find a wide variety though, I would suggest you go to Michaels (if they have a Michaels were you live). It's basically the capital of everything art where I live :)

Answer 7

I use charcoal a few times... it's messy but it looks great when you're shading in a large area of space.
The first time I ever used charcoal, I was proud... my first drawing: http://www.deviantart.com/view/25490690/

Answer 8

Charcoal is not my favorite medium but yes I've used it. The great thing about charcoal is that it gives you a wide range of tones (from black to white) allowing you to render very realistic light effects and a sense of volume (3D).
As far as Edward Gorey, on all the stuff I've seen published, he used ink probably on paper or board. Very intricate hatching patterns, but it is all ink work.

Answer 9

There's different types of charcoal. I've used soft, and compressed. Compressed is similar to pencil. I have used both for under sketches, but I prefer compressed for those. I buy art supplies anywhere their sold. No particular dealer or brand. Good Luck.

Answer 10

Yes, I use charcoal for portrait drawing. I would highly reccommend using it if you are trying to create life-like images. You can buy it at any art supply store. There are kits they sell that give you everything you need, and special paper for it to.