Revisiting Charcoal Drawings

I did my fair share of charcoal drawings in art school. I wasn’t a big fan of the dust that ended up everywhere. On the days of the classes that required charcoal, I always wore black. There was no other way to get around messing up your clothes otherwise.

Here’s a revisit decades later.

I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t mind working with charcoal after all these years. (Photo reference and artwork: Myra Naito)

Lately, it seems I get pulled into projects that I see other artists doing. Simply put, what they’re doing looks like fun and I wanna try it too. This leopard portrait is one of them.

To be true to the artist and the project she was working on, I used exactly the same materials. In this case, that consisted of Canson Mi-Teintes toned pastel paper and General’s black (soft, medium, and hard) and white charcoal pencils. In addition, I also used paper stumps and Sofft Tools mini applicators for blending. The reference photo came from Unsplash, free high-resolution royalty-free photos. And because this was going to be shipped from Hawaii to California, I sprayed it with Spectrafix. I prefer this brand because this brand doesn’t alter your charcoal or pastels as much as other brands. Other brands can darken or change your charcoals/pastels, which really sucks after you’ve spent hours to get it just right.

Note on the Spectrafix: Pour this into a super fine mist spray bottle to avoid larger…