Charcoal drawings are my favorite drawing style or technique, whatever you call it. I love experimenting with different drawing tools but charcoal is my favorite so far. They are so fun to draw once you get familiar with the tools and techniques. I have not become really good yet but I am improving with every attempt. So I thought of helping others who have heard of charcoal drawings or sketches and want to try it themselves but don’t know where to start.
So here are a list of Charcoal drawing tools you would want to buy if you want to get better with the techniques since the beginning. Before that I would suggest that you don’t buy every charcoal tools available in the market. You should be first get used with the basic tools that I am going to tell you here and then you can add other additional tools to add more varieties to your drawings.
The tools that I am going to talk about here are as below:
Compressed Charcoal Sticks
Compressed charcoals generally comes in rectangular shaped sticks. They are good for covering big areas as well fine lines which you can make with the edges of the stick. They come in varieties though. Hard and Soft. Hard sticks are good for lighter shades’ and Soft sticks are comparatively darker than the hard sticks. Soft sticks are also easy to blend than the hard sticks. So you can use them based on your requirements.
Vine Sticks
Vine charcoal sticks are made of burned vine sticks and are really soft in texture. They are lighter in shade so it is easy to start the drawing with them to make initial linings and also lighter shades’. They come in number of sticks and you can break them up to your desirable length to use. Since vine charcoal sticks are softer and lighter, they are easy to erase well.
Charcoal Pencils
Charcoal pencils’ are really handy without messing up your hand too much as compared to compressed charcoal and vine charcoal sticks. Charcoal pencils’ comes in different shades’ which is identified by pencil numbers such as HB, 3B, 5B and more. The shades’ darkness can be seen in the packet of the pencils’ while purchasing. Charcoal pencils’ are really good for precise and small details, as you can sharp them as per your requirement.
White Charcoal Pencil
White Charcoal Pencil is good for white areas and highlights in your drawing. They are like normal charcoal pencil but white (haha). They are generally used at the ending stages of the drawing to add extra light or white shades’ in the drawing.
You can also use white chalks which is not charcoal but they can be used for big areas to shades’ as white.
Eraser
There are few types of erasers you can get to your tool kit. Erasers are not only used for undoing the mistakes but to add highlights and make the shades’ lighter in certain areas. You can get a regular rectangular eraser for normal uses and sharp highlights (white the edges).
Eraser Pencil or Pencil eraser are fine eraser sticks white can be used to fine details, for removing mistakes and highlighting.
Gummy or Kneadable eraser are also very good for lifting the pencil/charcoal pigment off the paper without spreading the shade. You just have to press the eraser with little pressure to get the pencil off the paper. You can also bend it in a certain shape and size since it is gummy in texture.
Smudge Sticks
They are the compressed paper sticks which are used for smudging and shading. They can be sharped, so you can use them for smaller areas as well.
Few DIY tools you can use for smudging are tissue paper, soft or textured cloth.
You can buy set of a kneadable eraser and stumps here:
Paper
You can use any type of paper for your drawing basically. But it is recommended to use a good quality paper since you are going to do a lot of shading and erasing and the bad quality paper can be shredded easily.
Cold pressed watercolor paper are textured and good in grasping more charcoal in it because of the friction and the texture. Your charcoal tools would be little darker in shade because the texture of the paper.
Hot pressed watercolor are smoother in surface and uses lesser charcoal since there is no texture to grasp more charcoal in it. The shades’ can be little lighter as they are easily spreadable.
As a beginner, you don’t have to buy the professional watercolor paper, I use normal sketching or drawing paper for it when I am not making a final piece. But as said before, good quality is better.
Colored Charcoal Tools
I would not tell you buy them only when you are starting to learn, how to use charcoal tools but they are good additions for adding colorful twists in your drawing once you have learned the basics. The above mentioned charcoal tools are also sold in colors by many brands. Not many bright colors but some subtle and soft colors are available in the market.
Conclusion
So those were the basic charcoal tools you would need to learn the right techniques since the beginning. I hope you have gained basic knowledge about the basic charcoal tools. Feel free to experiment with them to learn different techniques. Have a happy learning. THANKYOU!
