Thursday, March 4, 2021

Daily Charcoal Sketching

 Lately I've taken up a daily sketching habit with charcoal.  Why charcoal?  Sketching with charcoal is quick, simple and inexpensive. Charcoal makes it easy to put down a wide range of tones and build a complete composition.  Not a lot of tools and materials are required.  Here is my charcoal sketching tool tray.

art charcoal sketch tools materials

You don't need everything you see in this photo.  You can start with this basic list:

Paper (something with some tooth)

Vine charcoal

Compressed charcoal

Vinyl eraser

Chamois

Blending stump

I like to sketch at the easel, I just prop up a large sketchbook and sketch vertically.  This forces me to sketch more loose from the shoulder rather than from the wrist.  I keep these sketches to 10-15 minutes each.  They are not meant to be finished works but rather practice and composition tests.  I do one or two of them first thing every morning.

art charcoal sketching tools easel

As you see here I am sketching on a large sketch pad even though each sketch only uses part of the paper.  Here are some examples of sketches I done lately.


art sketch charcoal landscape nature

art sketch charcoal landscape nature

art sketch charcoal landscape nature




art sketch charcoal landscape nature

 





 



No comments:

Post a Comment