Week 32: Charcoal
Welcome to week 32 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?
This week's medium was charcoal. Charcoal is a very messy medium. Be prepared to get charcoal all over yourself and your work surface.
So, what is charcoal? If you're thinking of the charcoal you use to BBQ, you'd be wrong. Well, I mean, it IS charcoal, but not the kind you use for art. There are different types of charcoal you can use for art:
Willow or Vine charcoal: made from grape vines or willow sticks. They're often not particularly straight, have a more wavy feel to them. It's more smokey and light in color, getting your darks really dark will be difficult.
Compressed charcoal: made from powdered charcoal that has been compressed (obviously, the name says it all) with a binder. It's formed into uniform sticks. You can get these in different ranges from hard to soft. You'll be able to get cleaner lines with a compressed stick. You'll also be able to get darker darks with a softer compressed stick.
Charcoal powder: it's just powdered charcoal. It's got a softer tone to it. It can be applied using a brush, your fingertips, whatever you want. You can quickly cover large areas with charcoal powder.
Charcoal pencil: it's a stick of compressed charcoal encased in wood. Yeah, it's a pencil, just with charcoal instead of graphite. Charcoal pencils work really well for making fine details.
I pulled out my charcoal supplies for this week and got to work. I have a whole collection of various charcoal supplies, but for this week I used my mystery box of charcoal pieces.
So, what is charcoal? If you're thinking of the charcoal you use to BBQ, you'd be wrong. Well, I mean, it IS charcoal, but not the kind you use for art. There are different types of charcoal you can use for art:
Willow or Vine charcoal: made from grape vines or willow sticks. They're often not particularly straight, have a more wavy feel to them. It's more smokey and light in color, getting your darks really dark will be difficult.
Compressed charcoal: made from powdered charcoal that has been compressed (obviously, the name says it all) with a binder. It's formed into uniform sticks. You can get these in different ranges from hard to soft. You'll be able to get cleaner lines with a compressed stick. You'll also be able to get darker darks with a softer compressed stick.
Charcoal powder: it's just powdered charcoal. It's got a softer tone to it. It can be applied using a brush, your fingertips, whatever you want. You can quickly cover large areas with charcoal powder.
Charcoal pencil: it's a stick of compressed charcoal encased in wood. Yeah, it's a pencil, just with charcoal instead of graphite. Charcoal pencils work really well for making fine details.
I pulled out my charcoal supplies for this week and got to work. I have a whole collection of various charcoal supplies, but for this week I used my mystery box of charcoal pieces.
And here's my finished charcoal drawing. It's a tree. I know, I do a lot of trees. I like trees, okay?
I should have taken a picture of my fingers after - charcoal everywhere. But, since I had charcoal all over my fingers, I couldn't take any pictures. Sorry about that.
On to rating charcoal...
Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.
Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.
Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.
Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?
Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium
So, for charcoal, my rating is: 11
Ease of use: 4
I feel like if you can use a pencil you can use charcoal - at least the charcoal pencils. The only difficult part, I think, is keeping your lights light and getting your darks dark.
Affordability: 5
Charcoal is super affordable. You can get a complete set of all the charcoal supplies you'd ever want for around $20.
Accessibility: 5
You can get charcoal in just about any arts and crafts store. You can definitely get it in an art supply store. And, of course, you can easily find it online.
Fun to Use: 5
I love using charcoal. I love the texture of it, the softness of it, everything about it. But most of all, I love getting charcoal all over my hands. It really makes me feel like an artist, like I'm creating something.
If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...
If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!
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