Charcoal drawing

For my quarter 2 project, I chose to do a charcoal drawing of a tall thin vase type of object. First, I did my rough draft on a blank sheet of paper. After completing my rough draft and figuring out where all the shading should be I went on to my final copy. I chose to use newspaper to draw on because I wanted to try something different. I used 2 charcoal pencils (1 black and 1 white), 1 regular pencil, 1 kneaded eraser, and 1 smudge stick. I first outlined my drawing and shading with the regular pencil. Next, I used a light shade of black charcoal created by lines going in the same direction. I followed up with more layers going in different directions to create darker shades wherever it was needed. Finally, I used the kneaded eraser to remove black from light spots and went over it with the white pencil. It was very important to wait for everything to be complete to start smearing the charcoal because the drawing could be easily ruined. I used the smudge stick to smoothly combine the different shades. That final step made the drawing come to life and look more realistic which relates to my style of art. I am proud of this because it relates to some of my other artwork but it’s different at the same time. I like using shading to create realistic effects but I never really tried it by trying to draw an actual object. The idea of this actually came from Guy Denning who does charcoal drawings on items such as newspapers and boxes. If I could do this project again I would probably draw more than 1 object to make the paper looks more full. Through this, I got a better understanding of how to use charcoal as a medium to create artwork.