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AnndreaLeeann — Charcoal portrait tutorial
Published: 2009-10-17 21:47:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 43514; Favourites: 761; Downloads: 1820
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Description
I hope this tutorial helps you with charcoal in some way :]...:/....o.OThe brushes I use are Loew-Cornell 1812 in size 9 and 3 but any brush that's soft should work fine. I use a rounded brush as apposed to square because it's easier to blend and square leaves little lines. The charcoal pencils *the woodless ones Ive found work better* are Art Alternatives brand but General's brand are studdly as well :]
For paper I recommend Strathmore Drawing. It's not too pricey and seems to work really well.
The subject used in this tutorial is Bert McCracken from The Used and
The drawing used to make this tutorial:
Works done with these techniques:
(If you drew a charcoal portrait and used this tutorial, please send me a link and I will add it here! Or if you don't want it to be added, I'd love to see and fave.)
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Comments: 324
I use stick chunks of charcoal too, yes. For coloring in large areas ;]
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I see, I see. Thank you! c:
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For christmas, My best friend and my dad got me a couple charcoal sets, and i've never used charcoal before, and I'm preparing to do my first one for my school counseler. This is really helpful for me! Thank you so much!
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Very cool!! It's going to be hard to get used to at first, but keep with it ;] Good luck! Please show me what you have created!!
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I will! Thank you! For starters, I tested it with a self-portrait of myself and i submitted a WIP to my drawing account: [link]
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Thanks A LOT!
I always wanted to know how people did this type of portraits!
Now I know ^o^
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This is how I do them anyway! lol :3 You are welcome!!
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that's a lot for this
you are so awesome srsly <33
I was needing some advice since I'm making a portrait of myself for drawing classes in charcoal.
I'll see what I can do with what I have xD
thanks a lot for this help, I'm off to practice 8D
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So good to hear!! Thanks for giving it a try! :] Good luck!!
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I try ;] thanks!
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your more than welcome
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Thanks for the awesome tutorial, I always wanted to use charcoal but up to now I had no specific idea on how to use it correctly!
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You are very welcome! There is no "correct" way for art though :] if your method is bashing your head into a chunck on paper, then so be it lol!
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Hi could i have your opinon on this portrait ive made. It would be very helpfull. It not nessicairy your tutorial already helped me more than enough.
Heres a link to the dev [link]
Thanks for making this tutorial. It really helpfull.
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I appreciate that very much!!
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you're welcome and thanks for do this tutorial ;D
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WHOA you know i never knew charcoal could be used like this thank you!
even my own art teacher, which i think he went to a top art school, doesn't use charcoal like this thank you
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haha thanks!! You just gotta fool around with it and get your own style with it I guess! :]
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no problem at all, 
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Thanks for this tutorial..now I know what to teach to my students.
I'm an art education instructor..just new..and I don't use charcoal when I was still studying (well, maybe thrice..) cause I'm more into painting.
I'll send you some of my students work after our charcoal lesson. ^^, Thanks again!
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Thank you! If you have any questions let me know, i'll see if i can help!
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Hey,
first of wonderful totorial. I just started drawing with pencils but I'm sure sooner or later I'll try charcoal. 
You still searching woodless charcoal pencils?... I just found some via Google. [link] *probably that may help*
As for the question how other people blend and shade without using brushes. Well as I said I just started drawing (with pencils) and for those I use Q-Tips. (Not my own idea, someone mentioned it in a video on youtube) Don't know if it works for charcoal as well but you could try
Anyway thanks for this really great tutorial 
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Thank you for taking the time to comment!!
I have not used q-tips but I bet those would work wonders! I have used a cosmetic sponge before, those worked great for large surfaces, but I bet A qtip would be really great! Thank you very much!!
And as for the woodless pencils 
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Ok that's really odd.
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I'm glad you think so!! :]
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This is a handy awesome tutorial.
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I think so too; I used them today to blend in my drawing class in college and students were perplexed they worked so well. I liked the attention but it's not an entirely new concept haha who says paintbrushes can only be for paint ^^
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Definitely.
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and make it easier to erase later, tortillons seem to rub the charcoal/graphite into the paper >.<
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No doubt about that.
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I'm really glad you liked it!!
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it just reminds m of the guy you drew, with all the smokes lmao
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Hey! Nice description! It's always nice to see how others are working because there's always some little detail which I can use to improve. In this case - there are woodless charcoal pencils?! And after seeing you use the brush as well... I think I'll give them a try.
Thanks for posting this up.
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There are!! But.. now that I have wore them down to stubs, I can not find them anywhere. I found mine in a tin at Michael's Craft store and they don't carry them anymore
Thank you and I hope that it works for you!!
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When I started we didn't have anything except for pressed and willow charcoal, I had to make the sleeves myself. Now they have pencils (though it's a poor choice), but that's about it. I think online is my only bet of finding something exotic like woodless. I'll let you know if I find a good supplier.
A suggestion if I may, how about drawing the grid on a grease paper and putting it behind your drawing paper in the sketching phase? That way you don't have to erase anything later.
This always used to be a pain for me... I never could entirely erase the ones on front and sometimes I even managed to damage to paper surface because I drew a line too strong. If I drew it on the back, I could only work with a big glass surface - window, but since I usually draw in evenings even that was not an option. I had to take down glass doors from my cupboards and use them with back lights.
But when the time came to erase them, I had to be extra careful where I put the drawing surface so it doesn't get dirty or smudgy.
Using a pre-drawn grease paper saves you some time and effort there. You can have a few sizes ready, depending on what you want to draw.
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Oh my, that is a wonderful idea!! I am definitely going to try that; sounds perfect in theory! Thank you! <3
And if you do find a supplier please do, I found one who will only ship within Canada and I am in the United States. I shot them an email and asked if I bought in bulk *I use a lot of charcoal lol* if they could send it to the united states, no reply is a big screw you basically so I'm still looking. I would use compressed charcoal and just shave it down to a point, but it seems like such a waste to me, maybe they sell it in smaller, longer chunks, I'd just do that and make my own casing some how.
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Glad to help!
Just make sure you don't make any kind of crease in the grease paper, it has to be kept flat to give you a good grid. Otherwise it lifts from the paper and you won't see a good line. Store them in your drawing map or something when you don't use them (they're actually great for separating sheets of charcoal drawings).
I used to make casings by rolling a strip of paper around the charcoal stick and adding some paper glue to it once you've made the first two wrapping turns. That holds fairly strong (sticks don't break like they do when I use them in my hand), keeps hands clean, and you can reuse it with other sticks. I keep about an inch of charcoal sticking out at a time, it's enough to draw, sharpen and draw again for some time. When I use that I push the rest out a little bit more from the other side (I use cotton swabs for that since they're around anyway and they don't cut charcoal like screwdrivers - had a bad accident with that
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I think you've made me turn a new leaf with the mediums I use to draw with. I am going to start looking for longer chunks of charcoal and do what you described. There's a 'real artist' feel about that, I'm not sure, like a real 'using what's available and getting the most out of it' I like it! Thanks so much for the ideas and inspiration!!!
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Now you're just making me blush!
I'm glad to be of help, especially since I learned some neat tricks and explanations from your tutorial here.
If you find good willow sticks they will smudge nicely, pick up nicely, and give a good velvety feel. They also scatter at the slightest breeze so keep the drawing safe.
I had the most fun with those of ~7 mm thickness. Thicker than that becomes too cumbersome to use, and smaller ones have to be sharpened way, way too often to keep the edge so you end up using three to five on a single 8x11 drawing. They are also more prone to breaking. Thicker ones were much less so.
Pressed charcoal gives deeper black and keeps the edge longer, is very hard to break accidentally, but also smudges harder and is much less forgiving. It's closer to the pencils and I think you're used to them so I don't think that will be a problem.
If you run into any problems with something, let me know.
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I have only ever used willow once for a portrait and that was before I discovered the painting of 6b charcoal dust. I used the willow for the shading which I did like a lot, but you blow on it like you said, poof XD but I found it took longer.. well compared to a quick push of a brush yeah. I wonder though how other people shade who don't use brushes.. :/
I will :] I appreciate it!!
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