Week 6:

Practice a subtractive charcoal approach by toning your paper with charcoal to black. With this technique, the roles of the eraser and charcoal are reversed–you use your eraser to draw and the charcoal to erase.

Week 5:

Toning your paper with grey immediately gives you the midtone, allowing you to lighten with your eraser and darken with charcoal.

Week 4:

Add refinements and details. As you work on the tiny areas and nuances, don't forget to see the big picture. Squint, step back, take photos, compare your drawing to the photo.

Week 3:

Continue working on your drawing. Focus on three areas: 1. proportions, 2. the different colors of objects (light colored objects versus dark colored objects), and 3. lights and shadows on each object / area

Spend time on your drawing every day - it adds up!

You can ignore details and textures and subtle nuances - we'll discuss that next week.

Week 2:

Sketching with charcoal is a fun and easy way to quickly create a tonal drawing. Even if you don't add all the details, the result feels quite substantial.

Week 1:

Finish your charcoal chart if you haven't already.

Here's the list of optional supplies that I introduced in class:

• Plastic bridge to rest your hand on
  • Alternative is two erasers (or two things that are the same height) and a ruler
• Chamois cloth (pronounced sha-mee)
• Large drawing board
  • Alternative is taping your paper to the back of a drawing pad that's larger than your drawing paper
    • Delicate masking tape

Here's more information about the "Natural charcoal pencils" Kelly asked about in class.