Drawing Original
Artist Drawing Charcoal- More Choice
Most artists will know that the market for drawing charcoal is dominated by manufacturers using coppiced willow and fewer using grapevine. This is not surprising as they both make a perfectly reasonable charcoal at an acceptable price from a sustainable source, so there is nothing wrong with that. However, the downside is a lack of variety.
Drawing charcoal can be made from many different source woods, each bringing their own particular qualities to bear on the artwork, but of course not all trees and shrubs take to coppicing as readily as willow. The result is that many of the old and more unusual varieties have slipped out of favour due to economics rather than their ability to perform, and very few are now made except by a handful of cottage industries.
In the past, the French made a superior charcoal from the ‘spindle tree’ and was greatly favoured by many of the Great Masters to the point where the French name for the tree (fusain) became the accepted generic term for all drawing charcoals, and still is to this day, although most contemporary French artists will be confronting the same lack of choice as everyone else.
Fusain was used by many celebrated artists such as Degas, Braque, Van Gogh, Seurat, Matisse and Picasso to name a few. The much loved qualities of original ‘fusain’ were its rich black colour and a texture slightly softer than willow which gave a smooth drawing action.
Numerous tree and shrub sources other than Spindle can also provide successful artist grade charcoals. Wisteria, Honeysuckle, Forsythia and Ivy Vine all make good sticks with their own particular characteristic. Ivy Vine for example produces a very rich black comparable to ‘fusain’ but with the advantage of a larger diametrical range that may suit artists working in a large expressive style.
Other charcoals, Honeysuckle for example, give a much finer range of diameters whilst retaining a good depth of blackness, but more importantly for a tightly figurative artist, also retaining a good strength in the smaller diameters.
There is a whole world of different charcoals for artists to explore. They are often a little more expensive than the norm for the reasons stated, but the smaller producers like Gardette in the UK and others to be found on the web are well worth a look. These small cottage industries are worth supporting just to keep the idea of ‘choice’ alive for artists in a market that would already be considered by many to be minor interest.
About the Author
Original Megan Fox charcoal speed drawing – ThePortraitArt
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