I continued with the same drawing tonight, but this time I pulled out the charcoal and decided that I needed to revisit the different mark making abilities of charcoal. Mainly I wanted to try and achieve the same detail with charcoal as I did with the graphite. I tried several different charcoal weights and I found that I could get the same detail as the graphite with a harder charcoal stick but I needed to sharpen it constantly to keep the sharp tip. So I tried different marks like cross hatching, super soft touches and linear marks that followed contours of a surface.
All of their marks had their usefulness in some areas but ultimately I still liked the detail achieved by the graphite. It was quite a bit easier to achieve with graphite also. I also like some areas where the graphite and charcoal fit well together. Both have are well suited for certain marks, its knowing which material to use and which marks that is important.
The Drawing
