You have just returned from the hunt for mammoths. Today no luck. In the distance, you saw bison, but the mammoth never appeared. You and your clan made a little joke when you get home. Instead of putting it on a clan member, you decided to go to the cave and inflate a little. You walk from the smoldering fire that burned all day, and take away the piece of limb that still burned at the end. You think it will light up your path a little. At the same time, you see a small piece of wood that has been carefully charred, but is now cooling. You take it too. You carefully look at it. Something deep inside your primitive brain is intrigued by this blackest stick. With a “torch” in one hand and a burnt stick in the other, you enter the cave. Like you, you are dragging a burned stick over a rock. It leaves traces of soot. You drag it again over the rock, another black line.
Then something, some glimmer of creative impulse, some spark of “what if” passes in your brain. You reach the cave ceiling and make another black line. You cross it with another. Then, as if some kind of magical power began to direct your hand, you begin to draw on the wall of the cave. There is a rough form. It looks like the outline of an animal! And voila! The first coal drawing. You are looking at him. Although it is raw, it mimics the shape of the buffalo that you saw and killed on past hunts. Not discovering that this mammoth is suddenly no problem today. You not only made the first charcoal drawing, you experienced the power of the arts!
Something similar happened in a Spanish, French, or Australian cave about 26,000 years ago. This was not the beginning of "art", since rock engravings were traced back to 70,000 years BC. Some negative stencils on the walls of the cave were carbonated, dated to 40,000 BC, and many believe that these are the first paintings of the caves. But our caveman may have done the first charcoal drawing on the wall of the cave. If he knew where he started. In the early Renaissance in the 15th century, charcoal was used by most artists, including the Old Masters, to create preliminary sketches for frescoes and panels. In the late Renaissance, by the early 16th century, artists such as Michelangelo used charcoal and chalk to draw on large paper. Then they will prick holes along the drawn lines. They would place the drawing on top of the surface they were going to paint. Crushing the charcoal into fine powder, they put it in a small linen bag and throw the bag along the punctured, drawn lines. The charcoal filter through the bag and the holes that transmit the dotted line, reproduce their pattern on the painted surface.
Preliminary sketches for more permanent work, drawing exercises, quick studies, and other artists' applications were typical with charcoal until the 1980s. During this decade, this universal environment finally began to be perceived as a significant medium for art. Today, charcoal is suitable for different artists. There is a powder, a piece, a block, a cylinder (or a baton), compressed, a pencil and a stick. The sticks are made mostly of carefully charred vines and willows. The main difference between a vine and a willow is that willow tends to be more black than a vine. Most forms of charcoal come in difficult for an extra soft talent of artists for a large range of values from light gray to black. The powder form is used to fill large areas, which can then be manipulated using erasers or using various methods. The shape of a cylinder or baton ranges from 6 mm to 50 mm in diameter. They are usually six inches long. Nitram does this and they are of very good quality. You can find them in quality art stores. Pieces and blocks are used by artists to make heavy, thick lines or to fill large areas. Compressed, which also comes in sticks in varying degrees of soft and hard, is a powdery form, mixed with a binder, like gum arabic or sometimes wax in less expensive brands. Compressed can give you the blackest black and can be used with all other shapes, but because of the binder it is not so versatile. For example, it cannot be easily erased. The binder makes it difficult to remove and may also discolor paint if used for sketching the composition before painting. This is not a problem with regular coal. The compressed form is also found in charcoal pencils. They come in wooden form and sharpening, like a regular pencil. They are also screwed into paper in the form of a pencil. There the line wrapped inside with the paper, and pulling it, breaks the next layer so that it can turn around, exposing the “lead”.
Charcoal is a tool that allows you to weaken in a drawing. Its dusty nature makes it interesting and difficult, and sometimes frustrating, especially when it smears. The drawings must be “fixed” with a workable fixture that allows you to re-draw the drawing until you are sure that it is complete. Then, the last couple of coats protects him pretty well, but even then, he won't smear. Decide that with a beautiful frame, a rug and glass!
