Today’s Guest Post is from a college girl who showed her interest in sharing her hobby of “Charcoal Drawing” with Mothers Gurukul readers. Along with Charcoal Drawing, she is really good at Henna /Mehendi, Glass painting etc.

Charcoal Drawing is one of the oldest forms of drawing. One of the first techniques taught to the students attending Art school is drawing with Charcoal. When it comes to Black and White drawing, no other medium is as perfect as Charcoal.

I have tried Oil Painting, Water coloring, Acrylic Painting, Fabric Painting. But never tried my hands on Charcoal Drawing. During my India stay, I was lucky enough to see Charcoal Drawing. Let’s see what our guest says about her hobby…

 

Charcoal Drawing

(post submitted by Madhura Bapat)

She says, “Charcoal is excellent for blending and for any sort of dimension. You can create different gradations of tone. You can smudge charcoal easily with your fingers or cotton or ear buds. For creating hard line, sand paper works well. Further, she suggests of exploring, trying as many possible things as you can with charcoal. Working with charcoal can get messy. Experiment with the material first before you actually begin to start your drawing. Find something to draw, anything will do.”

 

Two of her Charcoal Drawings..

 

 

 

Basic material required for charcoal drawing:

 

 

• HB Pencils – for drawing

• Charcoal Pencils- for fine lines or shading

• Charcoal sticks – for shading wide sections

• Sketch Book

• Piece of cotton or Ear buds

• Eraser

• Cello tape

• Acetate sheets

 

She showed me how to do the drawing step-by-step:

 

• When you start the painting, it is best to work vertically. This allows the charcoal dust to fall away. Make sure to set your paper on a sketch board. You can use clips to hold the paper. This will free your hands from holding the paper continuously.

• Find your object. Lay out the basic shape with HB pencil. (We picked a Perfume bottle.)

 

 

• Now, see the direction from which light is falling on your object. Then start shading using Charcoal pencil or charcoal stick.

 

 

• For fine lines, use charcoal pencils.

 

 

 

• Once you are done, place acetate (clear plastic) pages over your drawings to further protect them. This will secure your drawing from getting smudged and messed up and it will stay neat and tidy.

 

 

 

Thanks to Madhura for sharing and explaining her hobby of Charcoal Drawing to me and to Mothers Gurukul readers. I hope you wil try it soon!!