CHARCOAL: STRONG, SOFT, POWERFUL BLACK MAGIC

  If charcoal is not on your list of "favorite" art mediums, it's probably because its characteristic powder which when uncontrolled, can be messy. That aside, we can control it and discover many ways to effect its beauty.

  Our charcoal unit began with 1.)learning its forms 2.)displaying various values and 3.)controlling these with simple drawing tools. The examples below were simple 6"X9" practices.

  P.S. It might be helpful to review a pencil section on Values where this element is introduced.

VINE CHARCOAL twigs, medium hardness, offer soft blacks and light to medium grays. 4 values are shown on the left practice. The right sphere used a commercially made "compressed" charcoal stick, which produces much stronger blacks and grays. A handy blending tool is the felt stub which modifies and evens value tones, and presses the charcoal into the paper fiber thus controlling powder excess. An economical version of the felt stub is a simple 1/2" X 21/2" strip of cardboard.

The triangle gives "hard edge" opportunity while the "waves" offer curved blends. The cardboard and felt stubs become drawing tools themselves as they collect charcoal on their edges and can be used to effect light to medium values of grays when needed.

With "hard edges" in mind, we compared open and closed boxes. Since perspective had not yet been introduced, we simply drew the top of the shapes first, and then "drew down" to determine the sides. Bottom edges were made parallel to the top edges and the inner box corner was added last.

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