[The Real Mark]

Anyone have any? I just bought some white and black charcoal pencils.

Any pointers? I have never really tried it before.

I wouldn't mind getting the type of effect this girl seems to achieve.

http://phoenirius.deviantart.com/gallery/

haha, thats pretty insane. Not bad for a 16yr old. She actually lives in the same city as me.

But yeah, anyone got any good pointers?

[matter]

charcoal's really a fun medium once you get used to it. just don't be afraid of it... first i'd try just using the black pencil, then later on you can get some nice effects using cotton balls (like that girl i think), tissues, or those little paper stubs, although i don't recommend relying on them all the time, or your drawing'll start getting muddy fast.. also, it might be a good idea to hold out on the white pencil at first; that way you hav to rely on shadows to show form/light direction. then if you're using toned paper, white charcoal's great for highlights (try not to overuse it though), and on white paper, you can blend it with the black charcoal for a really opaque effect..

i myself just enjoy grabbing a huge stick of black and rubbing it all over a big white sheet of paper, so i don't know how much a pencil would differ...
of course, just have fun

-matt

[Mega Muffin]

We're using charcoal in my art class right now and it's so hard! I just can't seem to control it very well.

[makototaramoto]

charcoal is a bit unforgiving then using pencil. So watch out with those jet black marks unless your sure. What is good is a...
-paper stump...for blending though it shouldn't be over worked so the image is sharp rather then blurry
-kneaded eraser..great for making those whites white and also if you ever go to dark and want to up a few more shades...you have to "pop it" that is, touch it on the paper and pull up...dont move at all just dab
-cover sheet..this is golden...dont want your work being smudged
_________________
mercer

[Heysoos]

I'd say charchoal is more like painting than pencils are because you block in shapes. My favorite way to use charchoal is to start off by using some really soft charchoal and covering the entire surface in a medium grey by smearing it around with a cloth. And then using a needed eraser to block in the light areas and more charchoal for the darks you can control the tones and values very nicely, which might be how that person worked.

or since you have white charcoal too, you could get some grey midtoned paper and use the white charchoal for the highlights, the paper color for the lights and the black charchoal for the darks. What I recommend you stay away from is smearing the black and white charchoal together to make greys, that usually looks really bad.
_________________
http://www.angelfire.com/art2/wfkeil

[makototaramoto]

whatever medium i use i find blocking in shapes to be rewarding to say the least at the end. . That art on the site is pretty good almost exact my fav. line "okay, ive done ALOT of editing in this incase ur easily fooled and thought "WOW - WHO THA HELL CAN DRAW LIKE THAT?!" I dont mind touching things up using the computer but if i want black black im going to do it and not rely on contrast in ps or painter....since when people see originals they want be confused. Anyway the sum is...work from life....and draw from life....it's a 3-d world and you have a 2-d surface to work with and with some skill it will be easy...and you can convert images to black and white so you would have to determine values and such...2-d to 2-d is easy flat from flat...just my 2 cents though
_________________
mercer

[Tzan]

Wow she is really good.
I did some charcoal work in college in 2 semesters of life drawing classes. I think the basics have been covered by the others so I will just say:

step 1: Make some nice charcoal art, cotton balls are nice but dont be afraid to use your fingers too.
step 2: ...
step 3: Wash your hands

[makototaramoto]

*note using fingers too much can work against you b/c the oil in your fingers will soak into the paper and some of the medium, as well making erasers hard to use...or smugding too easy
_________________
mercer

[Tzan]

Awww, no fingers?

I suppose if I was working on something like that girls work I would just use tools. Big fat fingers dont work so well in small areas.

My life drawing work was mostly just sketching so a bit of finger shading was no big deal.

Great tip!
But seriously, dont forget to wash your hands.

[matter]

somethin to add.. cuz i was drawin w/a charcoal pencil the other day and throwin in some finger smudgin...

i like finger smudging. you can get a lot of effects/different edges using different pressures, etc... this is just for example, i see now that i really didn't push the values enough, and that may be because i was relying mostly on smudging for tone and i was using a hard pencil...



-matt

[makototaramoto]

for me i work with this

[**light**]>[medium light]>[**medium**]>[medium dark]>[**dark**]


i like to work with the darks first to make sure nothing is as dark as what i just put down...with the darks you automatically get the lights...now to work mediums and everything that falls in the middle last....and of course touch ups and what not. most people use value scales but the number of boxes and shades differ form person to person....
_________________
mercer