charcoal trouble

[arter_2]

I am having alot of trouble with charcoal i just cant seen to use it. It is just too hard for me to get exact lines or obtain a smooth texture. Does any one have any tutorials on it or any tips? Is there an excise i can do to refine my skills?

HELP!

:confused:

[tinyhands]

It depends what kind of charcoal your using. Is is vine, pencil etc? Charcoal comes in many ways and each require a different approach. If your using pencil its a lot easier to sharpen to a point, and its just better for overall cleanliness. Vine charcoal has a lot of good uses but it is very messy. It all depends on what kind of drawings you want to do too. Also, if you haven't used it alot, of course its gonna be hard. It takes a long time of using something in order to learn its properties. Your question is a little vague. Maybe be a little more specific and I better understand what your using and maybe why its giving you trouble.

[mtw]

Originally posted by arter_2
Is there an excise i can do to refine my skills?

Make a grayscale bar with eight tones. Draw long straight lines with out whole arm. Draw circles with your whole arm.

[sic1]

I haven't used vine charcoal, but I used the pencil charcoal before. In comparison to pencils, it is rather rough. I found I had to draw very very lightly on the paper in order to achieve a light tone. I used the Hard charcoal pencil for the majority of things, and the Soft one for pure black.

What mtw suggested is a good exercise. It's good to know your media before having to do a complete drawing with it, so if you can, play around with it.

[I.was.ink]

One solution to your problems. Draw on smooth newsprint paper, and use CONTE France 1710 2B pencils. It's like painting with butter.

Vine charcoal sucks!:mad:

[jrr]

Originally posted by I.was.ink


Vine charcoal sucks!:mad:

i like vine charcoal, don't be dissin vine charcoal. i'm always smudging when i sue vine. get shape -> find proportions--> smudge --> redefine --->> add darks--> erase for highlights.. tada!
the old middle to dark to light technique. i usually do charcoals like i paint, you have to lose it to gain it back.