SusieG Studio

Our instructor, Emily, mentioned that we would be using charcoal for our next class.  Vine and compressed charcoal to be exact.  There were several tables setup with various bottles, mugs, and other objects.  I chose to sit at a table with some difficult objects.  I like to be challenged.

I definitely had the challenge of drawing curves as in the following bottles:

I was drawing on my 18″x24″ drawing pad (Canson) and enjoy covering a large piece of paper.  No more 8″x10″ paper and small drawings.  I’m going big.  At least a minimum of 11″x14″.

I enjoy using vine charcoal for sketching the outline of my drawing.  I also like that I can easily erase it.  It also blends nicely on the paper.  I used the compressed charcoal to fill in the shadows and shading of the bottles.  I find it harder to blend versus the vine charcoal.

See all the marks on my paper?  Charcoal smears too easily and gets on my hands and fingers.

I had fun experimenting with charcoal.  It might actually be a favorite media of mine.

Take away from class:  need to work on light and dark values.