Charcoal

This welcome to the 15th video and the secret to drawing video of course brought to you by the virtue instructor dot com. And this video we’re going to continue our look at drawing media and take a look at charcoal. Charcoal is burnt to organic material that produces marks when it’s spread over a surface. Charcoal drawings can be produced using combinations of different types of charcoal. So let’s take a look at what we’re going to look at in this video. In this video we’re going to discuss the different types of charcoal. We’re also going to take a look at a quick charcoal drawing demonstration. So let’s go ahead and get started. First of all here’s a few various types and forms of charcoal. This first type of charcoal is called Vine charcoal. V I N E. Vine charcoal most fun charcoal is rounded. You can see it’s easily broken. This allows us to make smaller pieces if we needed them. Vine charcoal is easy to spread over the surface. It’s very powdery and when you take your finger and smudge it you can see that this is the case. It’s also easily erased with a needed eraser or any type of other racer. This is also vyne charcoal. It’s just a little bit thicker than charcoal is usually produced by burning willow wood. It comes in a variety of different hardness and softness is ranging from soft medium to hard. You can take the side of the vine charcoal and create some interesting marks as well. Unlike graphite charcoal is designed basically to use your finger for smudging. If you don’t like to get your fingers dirty you can always use a blending stump or a blending tortilla . Now this is also charcoal. This is a charcoal pencil and the type of charcoal inside of this pencil is called compressed charcoal compressed charcoal is created by taking the powdery charcoal and binding it together using a gum binder . It’s a little bit of a darker mark and it’s a little bit harder to erase this white stick. It’s also compressed charcoal. In this case just a bit of pigment has been added to the charcoal to create a white stick of charcoal . It’s a little bit different than a white pastel. This is also white charcoal inside of a pencil. So let’s go ahead and do a quick demonstration. In this case I’m going to draw an apple and I’m working on gray drawing paper. This is important because I’m going to be using both white and black charcoal for this demonstration . This will help me ensure that I have a full range of value. It will help me push my tints the lighter values and also push my shades the darker valleys. I’m beginning my drawing with a stick of vine charcoal. Now remember vine charcoal is the powdery charcoal. It’s also easy to erase and smear of the surface so stain very loose with my drawing. You also notice the way that I’m holding the charcoal it’s different than how you would hold a pencil . In fact I’m holding it with two fingers and then just moving my entire arm and making marks I’m not moving my wrist here. Now I can take my finger and I can smear it together. You’ll notice that when I smear or smudge over the surface the charcoal is becoming lighter. That’s because some of the charcoal is leaving the surface of the paper and going to my finger . I can also take a Shammi and use the Shia me to move the charcoal around just like with my finger. Some of the charcoal is removed from the surface making the area lighter . Now go ahead and add a little bit of the cash shadow that happens behind the apple here over the course of this demonstration. I’ll be adding layers and layers for the charcoal to the surface. Each time I dry them will come more detailed and more controlled how much the edge of the shadow that is cast behind the apple to make it look a little bit more realistic . At this stage in the drawing I’m not real concerned with all the details. Instead I’m just looking at the light areas in the dark areas and the apple our light source in this case is coming from the upper left hand corner. That means most of our shadows are going to be on the left hand side of the apple and behind the apple . Now I’m going to take a little bit of a blending tool and I’m going to smudge some of the areas with it. I’m not going to use my finger here because I want to have more control. Now I’m going to take my compressed charcoal. Remember it’s the darker charcoal and begin to add some of the details. Mostly what I’m doing here is making the shadows just a bit darker on the apple. You can only get so dark with Yvonne charcoal that compressed charcoal allows us to get a little bit darker. Slowly I’ll begin to add some of the details that I actually see on the apple. Now you might be wondering how do you sharpen this thing. Well it’s really easy. You just pull down the string and start to peel away the paper and then more of the compressed charcoal that’s inside of the pencil is exposed. If you wanted a really sharp point at the end of the pencil you could always rub the end of the pencil over a piece of sandpaper to make it short. Now also take my blending two and go over the surface of the compressed charcoal. Remember the compressed charcoal will not blend or smudge as much as the powdered charcoal or the vine charcoal . Now it’s time for another layer of the vine charcoal again. I’m just looking at the dark areas slowly starting to begin to pay attention to some of the details that exist now that another layer of charcoal has been applied and smushed into the surface. I can begin to add more compressed charcoal layers. This time I’m starting to pay attention to the details that exist on the apple the form of the apple is starting to take shape at this stage in the drawing. Again more compressed and then more vine charcoal with each layer that I add the Apple becomes more realistic and more three dimensional . Now it’s time to add some white charcoal to this point. I just have mid tones and shades. Now I’m able to start adding the tense and lighter Vai’s that exist in the apple. Now begin with the stem and I’ll start adding Lider values on the side of the light source . I’ll continue to accent the lighter values that exist all around the apple to create the illusion of the light source and to create that full range of value that I’m after. Once I’ve got some of the lighter areas established I’ll go back with the compressed charcoal to continue the balance how the values you can see on the left side of the Athel the texture of the apple is starting to take shape from here on out. Will be a process of adding light tense and darker values to achieve the effect that I’m after for the apple. I’ll slowly add details upon details smudge in areas where appropriate and continue to push and pull the shadows and the tense. Now I’m ready to create the contrasting background so I’m going to take the white compressed charcoal and go around the outside edge of the apple and finish up the drawing . You can really see the contrast now between the black and the white charcoal and the gray background . So what do we learn in this video. Well first we learn that charcoal is burnt organic material. We also learn that charcoal comes in a variety of different forms including vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. It also comes in different colors and in Pitso form. We also learned that charcoal can be applied to a surface using a variety of different methods in order to produce different lines and values in a drawing in the next video will continue with drawing media . And take a look at Pindi drawing.