John Wayne Drawing using willow charcoal
When I started working on this drawing, I started it the same as most of my drawings. I began by making the basic outline using a soft charcoal. In this case, it was a piece of willow charcoal that was lying out. That was when I decided too only use the willow charcoal stick for the drawing.
Using soft charcoal allows me to add or remove portions of the drawing. It erases clean without leaving lines, or areas that are difficult to cover later. Willow charcoal also blends extremely well, leaving a smooth transition from dark to light.
Normally I use a number of different, blending tools such as brushes, blending stumps, and paper towels. With this drawing shortly, after I started I decided to use only willow charcoal an eraser and my fingers. Yes, heaven forbid that I use my fingers.
It seems that some of the most detail-oriented artist frown on using your fingers. Or for that matter letting your hand contact the paper at all. They seem to believe that the oils from them may damage the paper. Yet many of the old masters drawing who only used their fingers have held up quite well. So I guess that this is more up to the artist. Should you touch or not touch the paper?
I guess that being self taught and starting out using my fingers for blending is a hard habit to break. I do like the way the finger blends the charcoal, the only drawback is that it will not erase as clean. The oils
from your hand combine with the charcoal making erasing a bit more challenging. Using your finger though can give you a much darker and deeper black tone in your drawings. They do not pick up the charcoal like other methods leaving more of the charcoal on the paper for blending.
