How do I draw with charcoal without making a grey mess?

Charcoal frustrates people who approach it as a fat pencil. It is a subtractive medium — the natural way to work is to cover the paper and remove, which is much closer to how you actually see light. It is also messy, dark and very hard to control at small sizes, and all three of those become manageable once you work at the scale it is meant for.

Step by step

1. Know the three types and what each is for.Willow or vine charcoal is soft, pale grey, dusty and erases almost completely — it is for laying in and for construction. Compressed charcoal is a bound stick, much darker, denser and far harder to remove — it is for the darks. Charcoal pencils are compressed charcoal in wood, for controlled detail and edges.
2. Use paper with tooth.Charcoal needs a textured surface to hold onto. Ingres or a laid pastel paper is ideal; cartridge is acceptable; smooth Bristol board will not hold it at all. Toned paper is particularly good because you can work up to white as well as down to black.
3. Start by covering the whole sheet.Lay willow charcoal on its side over the entire area and rub it in with a rag, a chamois or kitchen paper until you have an even mid tone. Working on grey rather than white removes the intimidation of the blank sheet and makes both directions available.
4. Lift the light shapes out with a putty rubber.Squeeze it to a point or an edge and pull the highlights out. This is the core of the technique — you are drawing with light, and the marks you make are naturally soft-edged and form-following.
5. Establish the darks with compressed charcoal, late.Compressed charcoal is difficult to remove, so commit to it only when the structure is settled. It gives you a black willow cannot reach, and the contrast between the two is what makes a charcoal drawing sing.
6. Work at arm's length and near vertical.A3 as a minimum, ideally larger, on an easel or a propped board. Vertical lets the dust fall off rather than sit on the drawing, and the distance keeps you working on the whole image rather than a corner.
7. Keep your hand off the paper entirely.Charcoal transfers at the lightest touch. Use a barrier sheet under your hand, or a mahl stick, and never rest a sleeve on the work.
8. Knock back mistakes with a chamois rather than an eraser.A quick wipe with a chamois or a soft rag takes an area back to a ghost of itself, which is enough to redraw over. Erasing to white is rarely what you actually want mid-drawing.
9. Fix it, or protect it, before it leaves the board.Charcoal is barely attached to the paper. Either spray fixative in the open air, or interleave with glassine and never let another sheet rub against it.

Tips

• A charcoal drawing photographs and scans poorly because of the surface sheen from compressed charcoal. Light it from two sides at 45 degrees to kill the reflection.
• Bread — the soft inside of a fresh white loaf — was the traditional charcoal eraser and it genuinely works, lifting tone without abrading the paper.
• Sharpen willow charcoal on fine abrasive paper rather than with a knife, which snaps it. Charcoal pencils are best sharpened with a blade, as pencil sharpeners break the core.
• Because it is so fast to cover ground, charcoal is the best medium there is for large tonal studies and for life drawing at speed.

Common mistakes

• Using compressed charcoal for the whole drawing — You lose the ability to lift and correct almost immediately, and the drawing goes uniformly black. Willow first, compressed last.
• Working small and detailed — Charcoal cannot hold fine detail and fighting it produces a laboured, grey drawing. If the work is small, use a charcoal pencil or a different medium.
• Blending everything with fingers — Aside from the grease, over-blended charcoal loses all its edge quality and becomes a uniform fog. Blend some passages, leave others as marks.

If it doesn't work

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