[Picture credit: Courtesy of Eren O.]

Wednesday, October, 31, 2018

Charcoal, pastels, drawing on dual layer colored wax: black on color

Artists use charcoal in order to physicalize their thoughts, feelings,
emotions and ideas. Charcoal is made of various materials that include a
binding ingredient. This type of drawing material can various the intensity of
lights and blacks but also allow some of the material to be rubbed off but
still leaving an impression. The artist’s charcoal can applied to canvas,
sidewalk, or most any other material and then later there are methods to
prevent the charcoal from being rubbed off making it a fixed work of art.

They have been doing these type of drawings as early as cavemen times.

Most of these materials are made from burning other materials and creating a solid stick. A few different types include wood based charcoal sticks either made from grape vines or willow. And then there are compressed charcoal sticks which contain gum based or wax based binding agents that can produce a hard or softer pencil-like tool which can vary in intensity.

Then there are also charcoal pencils, much like graphite pencils that keep
the artist’s hand clean and allows more detailed and finer tuned drawings. There are also charcoal crayons and powders.

Techniques with charcoal often involve rubbing paper or tissue against the charcoal to produce various intensities of shading. Erasing can be done with kneaded rubber erasers. There are various blending techniques to fill in the gray and dark spots and then an artist may also use the charcoal stick against a bump patterned surface to get a particular desired pattern. Or the artist may use tiny lines so that the drawing has to be seen from a distance.

It is fascinating to note that sometimes charcoal is used in rituals as well
as camouflage.

Charcoal basically is a carbon and ash combination that is left behind after a burning process. Heating up items like wood removes water.