Charcoal Drawing Lesson

Charcoal is made from wood that has been burnt, like charcoal you might use in a barbecue.

Artist’s charcoal can be just thin stick of burnt wood, or it can be charcoal that has been ground into a powder and has had a binder (a type of glue) added to it, and then it is molded into charcoal sticks.

 

Artist’s charcoal can be used in various ways:

•   It can be used to draw with the narrow end
•   It can be used on its side to make broad strokes
•   It can be made into powder by crushing or rubbing hard on a piece of paper, and using    the powder to rub into the drawing

Activity 1

1.         Draw a jigsaw puzzle-like pattern on a piece of paper. 

2.         Try and make each section a different darkness or lightness to the sections that are next to it.

3.         Use the charcoal in many ways to fill in each section differently. 

4.         Try an use and invent as many different ways of using the charcoal as you can i.e dots, lines, rubbings, scribbles, using the charcoal with the tip or on its side etc.

Activity 2

1.         Set up an object that is white or light colored on a light colored table or piece of paper.

2.         Shine a light onto the object from one side, so that a clear shadow is seen from the other side.

3.         Look carefully at the light and shadow and try and copy as many different lightnesses and darks as you can.  There will be light areas in the shadows and darkish areas in the light – see if you can find these areas!