Charcoal Portraits

Today, we started to experiment and draw with charcoal. There have been thousands of artists that have created masterpieces with charcoal. This is an example on Google.

I have never drawn with charcoal before, so this was interesting.

At first, I did some of my usual, cartoony sketches to get to grips with the charcoal. It was hard to sketch with as the charcoal doesn't completely stick to the page, so when you slide your hand across, it smudges. However, doing a self-portrait and a fashion inspired sketch, I used this to my advantage to create shading and highlights.

My sketch is quite simple and basic, which I like but can improve on. I think more detail and learning how to smudge purposely and not on accident will help. I could, next time, try sketching with a real model in front of me. Because I used a webcam to see my own face, when I looked down to draw and then back up, my position had changed. This didn't help with proportions and sizes.

The next one had dried a bit weirdly. I had accidentally used too much spray to dry it, which made the charcoal run around with it excess spray. I can fix this with chalks, etc, but next time I know to be a bit more sparing with the spray, and dry it on a flat surface.