How to Use Charcoal to Draw People

People have used charcoal for thousands of years to depict human form and charcoal continues to be one of the favored mediums today for many artists. Once used only for preliminary drawings, charcoal has retained the loose and free style to become an art in its own right. Try using charcoal to draw a human form.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Charcoal sticks
• Paper
• Putty eraser
• Spray adhesive
• Sandpaper

1. Condition the charcoal stick to a good point to begin. Break thin sticks with your fingers for a point. Rub thicker pieces on sandpaper to thin the point.

2. Sketch in the basic shape of the human form with the charcoal. The drawing strokes should be very fast, big and fluid. The results of a charcoal drawing are best when the picture does not posses too much detail.

3. Use charcoal like pencil or ink to draw the person. Draw in the eyes, mouth, nose, chin and hair. Use you fingertip to blend the edges to soften the strokes of the charcoal.

4. Try another technique for using charcoal by covering the whole paper with a gray layer of charcoal and removing the color in places with the putty eraser. This technique adds dimension by working from dark to light.

5. Capture the essence of the person only with charcoal. Get the basic shape and outline. Add basic shading under the cheekbones, mouth, chin, nose, eyes and hairline.

6. Set the drawing with a fixative. Spray adhesives can be purchased at art supply stores. You can also use cheap aerosol hairspray; the cheaper the better.