Alaskan Wilderness

Using Charcoal:

Charcoal is very soft and smears very easily. Thus it works well for covering large areas. I encourage you to use large sheets of paper when working with charcoal. If you work too small you will not be able to get the detail because a piece of charcoal covers a large area. When using pencil I encourage you to work smaller such as a 5 X 7 inch size, but with charcoal do not use anything smaller than an 8 X 10 inch piece of paper.

Selecting quality charcoal paper:

I encourage you to use a good drawing paper when using charcoal, but I also encourage you to use a cheap large size paper such as an 18 – 20  inch paper as well. With charcoal you can learn to draw large.

Using Vine or Willow charcoal:

There are different kinds of charcoal that you can purchase. I like to use the willow charcoal as it can create a nice dark value. Vine charcoal is a dark gray. Experiment using a charcoal pencil and compressed charcoal.

When working with pencil or charcoal it is important not to allow the side of your hand to touch the paper where you have already drawn. If it does, you will find it smearing and the lead will cover the side of your hand. You will lose the crispness and the different values of the drawing if you let this happen.

Using an eraser:

When using charcoal you will want to use a kneading eraser instead of normal erasers you use for pencil.  You will enjoy all that this eraser can do to help you have a masterpiece. You can also use a tortillon or a stump to smear the charcoal. When you use your fingers make sure that they do not have oil on them as this could ruin your picture.