Realastic ART Beginner - Advanced FAST Bargue Drawing course

Charcoal Drawing Materials List

Essentials to get started

• Drawing paper

• Hard charcoal pencils

• Eraser

• Pencil sharpener

• Small paint brush

Products Needed

• Quality Paper

• Quality charcoal set, including hard, medium, and soft pencils.

• Gray, white, vine and compressed charcoal

• Clear blending pencils

• Kneaded eraser

• Precision white eraser

• Fine Sandpaper 220 & 600+

• Course sandpaper 60&120 if using soft (B) wood pencils

• Two finger artist glove

• Long ruler

• Transparent geometry set: ruler, protractor, square, angle

• Container with lid for charcoal dust

• Calipers, long paintbrush, or knitting needle for measuring

• Long point electric or manual pencil sharpener

• Small, medium, and large blending stumps

• Variety of soft paint brushes (optional)

• Apron

• Workable fixative spray

• Art Storage container

• Portfolio

• Sturdy Easel

• Printer

  
  

Notes:

1. A long point electric pencil sharpener is good for hard charcoal pencils, or to get a soft or medium pencil started. Then they must be sharpened with fine sandpaper. Even hard charcoal that gets a long point from the electric sharpener will need to be smoothed out with the fine sandpaper to improve line quality.

2. Your blending stump needs to be a solid stump. The cheap ones are just rolled up paper. You could just roll computer paper to make a free blending stump so don't waste your money.  Examine the product before you buy it to make sure you can't see a line on it where the paper ends. A good blending stump will last a long time, but the rolled paper will just quickly fall apart. So, I recommend that you buy a quality product. Mine are Derwent, an affordable quality brand, mine have lasted forever.

3. The optional soft paintbrushes is for people who want to use this drawing course to learn to paint in oil, the way the masters learned. If being a really good charcoal or graphite artist is your only goal, then I would stick to the blending stumps.

4. If you like saving money (who doesn't) You can use an aerosol hairspray like aqua net in place of the $12 workable charcoal spray fixatives. It really works, in fact it works so well that it's used by art schools. If it's something you want to keep forever, or sell, or a gift, then I would buy workable charcoal spray like Krylon's Fixatif or Windsor and Newton's fixative.

5. Quality Paper-(Acid free, at least 65lb+, and toned is usually preferred) If you don't buy acid free paper, your drawing will not last. A lightly toned paper is often desired, because you can measure your values against a middle tone better than against white. However, toned paper is expensive for exercises, and white paper is good in some circumstances. If you want white on your drawing, you can use the white of the paper to make the whites of your drawing. Of course, there is white charcoal, but it is bad about mixing with the black. I prefer making my whites with an eraser and white paper.

6. The brand of soft charcoal I recommend is The Portrait Art on Amazon, professional grade woodless pencil ($12) Don't forget that you still need a hard charcoal pencil.

Sharpening Charcoal

The charcoal needs to be very sharp to get a smooth fine line. If your charcoal isn’t sharpened with fine sandpaper, you may get a blotchy line. I keep a piece of fine sandpaper (220 or so) beside me while drawing and just take a second to sharpen it every few minutes. Other people will sharpen 20 pencils before they start so they can concentrate on drawing without interruption. Either way is acceptable.

You also need a very long point, so you must sharpen it at a very low angle. Keep in mind that you can use a long-point electric sharpener for hard charcoal and to start medium and soft pencil charcoal. Be careful; the electronic sharpener will eat your medium and soft pencils up. You will need coarse sandpaper if you use soft pencils encased in wood (80-120), but you still have to sharpen it with the fine afterward. Any other type of charcoal is easier to sharpen; just use 220 sandpaper.

Grainy Charcoal

You have many tools to get your charcoal smooth. Your first lines of defense should be

1. Layering

2. Using a blending stick over your soft charcoal for middle tones

3. Using a hard pencil over your soft charcoal for dark tones.

But did you know that you can also use very fine sandpaper and a painter's knife for smoothing out charcoal? Some times sandpaper can get stuff off that an eraser cannot get. You will see that demonstrated in the following video.

This is my underdrawing. I was working on a master replica of an oil painting by Richard Schmid.

Credit- Richard Schmid - Study of a Young Girl

See why you should always wear your glove

This is a simple rule of charcoal. It’s much powderier than graphite, and very sensitive to fingerprints and oil stains. I got an oily palm stain on this study of a master replica that I am working on for an oil painting project. Since it was just a study I wasn't being overly cautious and worked briefly making a correction without the glove. I thought it would be a good lesson for you. Always wear your glove.

If one of these common mistakes happens, don’t fret. You may be able to save your drawing. Start with your kneaded eraser, dab it on the problem area. It will be of little help removing the fingerprint or oil stain, but it will pick up charcoal, so you don’t spread it around.

Next try vinegar. Both oil stains and fingerprints may lift with a solution of ½ vinegar and ½ water.

Let’s Focus on fingerprints. If it isn’t an oily fingerprint, then it will probably lift with very fine sandpaper. If that doesn't work, try a mixture of water and borax together and carefully blot the fingerprints. Be gentle, too much water or borax may ruin the paper quality.

Oil stains may come out with chalk and heat. The chalk will absorb the oil, and then brush away. Just put a little chalk dust on your problem area, put a piece of cooking paper on top. Apply heat with an iron on a low setting for no more than 5 seconds. Be careful.

If all fails, just look at it as a learning experience. Mistakes happen to everyone. You learn a lot from your mistakes, so embrace them.

My unfinished drawing is a study of an oil painting by Richard Schmid. In my opinion he was the greatest modern day realistic artist. I recommend you check out his phenomenal work, he is an inspiration to realistic artist around the world.

Credit- Richard Schmid - Study of a Young Girl

Common exercises

Lines Exercise

Practice making freehand straight lines, both thin and thick. Remember to hold your hand at a low angle when making thick lines, and when making these longer lines, the movement should come from the elbow, not the wrist.

Just practice drawing relatively straight lines on an easel (preferably using charcoal.) Try to make lines of different values (shades). Practice holding your pencil at different angles to make thick lines and thin lies. You can use a sheet of notebook paper to practice if it's difficult. First, practice tracing the blue lines, then practice in between the lines. Turn your paper sideways and practice vertical lines too. Practice until you can make about ten relatively straight lines in a row without tracing. Drawing upright and with charcoal takes some getting used to. Please use your easel and charcoal for all these simple exercises.

Practical Application

When you start a drawing, you will start with a few simple lines.

When Blocking In a drawing, You will quickly lay in your basic shapes and values.

You will likely use the low angle thick lines to quickly place your shapes and values with soft charcoal.

Continuous Line Drawing Exercise

Continuous line drawings provide an excellent way to develop hand eye coordination. Continuous line drawings are made by keeping the pencil in contact with the paper for the duration of the exercise.

Try to match my drawing in real time from the video. Try to match speed of looking with speed of drawing. So, keep your eyes on the reference most of the time, and glance at your paper frequently. 

Think of a piano player reading sheet music. They look at the sheet music (their reference) more than they look at their keys. It's their guide, just like your reference is your guide. If you're not referencing your guide, your just making stuff up, and if your just making stuff up, it's not going to be realistic art.

See how another student did this assignment in the resource

Exercise 1: Make a shading value chart

Shading exercise 2: Hatching and Cross Hatching

Hatching is a technique used extensively in drawing and painting. It is a line drawing technique dating back to the renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci was a master of hatching. Virtually all masters used this technique, and it is still very popular today. It is usually used to express middle tones (anything in between white and black) especially in drawing. Often they are very neat, but other times they are quite messy.

Parallel hatching is made with close parallel lines usually short, used to create value in an interesting way. Cross hatching makes additional lines in the opposite direction forming tiny squares. They are usually used to create shadows.

One of the most important tools you can have at your disposal as an artist is a strong knowledge of hatching and cross hatching. Hatching and crosshatching are a simple way to generate value and texture in a drawing. These techniques use simple lines in various directions, arrangements, and densities create interesting perspective and contour.

Examine the resource photos to see how the masters used hatchings

credits: Self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci c. 1512

Edgar Degas Self-portrait 1857

SCUMBLING

I like to refer to scumbling as an organized mess. It's made with random strokes, mostly circular. It is used to give a textured look and feel to your drawing. Edges are the key to creating the illusion of texture.

It is used frequently in hair, especially curly or messy hair. You can use scumbling to create shadows.   It is used extensively in oil painting but has a place in drawing as well. Learning this skill will make your art more interesting.

Remember that you want to avoid patterns emerging in your random mess. Try holding your pencil from the back or using your non dominate hand so you have less control of your strokes.

Although some small places can be solid, it should be like a highlight, be careful that you don't overdo your scumbling. If you do it will become more like a solid, and you will lose that interesting textured look.  If you need dark values, try sharp soft charcoal so that you can get darker strokes, without going over it with too many layers.

Tip for adjusting difficulty level

Welcome to the Bargue Drawing course!

I want to remind you that you don't have to do all 197 plates. However, I want you to do all the plates in this unit if you can. This is an intensive drawing course, and It was designed for adult student artists who are guided by an artist. So, it isn't exactly an easy course. If your having a hard time with this section, then skip ahead to the fast track tips first. However, if you are able to do them in the order that I present them, please do so. I have put them in this order so that you can develop solid technical drawing skills before you start with timesaving tricks that most artist use. If you skip straight to the tricks, you may never learn the essential technical skills.

This first Bargue plate is of the eyes. People have mistaken preconceived ideas about the eyes. The first misconception your brain tells you is that your eyes are in the upper half of your head, and the nose is in the center. This is simply inaccurate information. Take a moment to measure your face with your fingers. From the nose to the bottom of the chin is about the same distance as the nose to the center of your forehead. Now try from the center of your eyes to your chin, and you will see that measurement takes you to the top of your head.

The second misconception is that the main lines of the eye are simply two curves, two convex lines pushing out. That is simply not true, as you will see in this exercise. The eyes are full of angles, each a little different. I'm going to show you how to draw this first Bargue plate.

Steps

1. Find your farthest points in each direction

2. Form a notional space box from those points

3. Make an envelope, which means narrow down your box. Make a smaller shape by extending 3-5 contour lines to your notational box

4. Look for followthrough lines, other lines to help you get precise measurements on difficult angles or lines

Make sure your reference and your drawing are the same height. Start transferring your notational box and lines to your drawing. Use your square and ruler. I start with using my long ruler to get the extreme top and bottom lines. I use the edge of my paper to make sure everything is square. Next draw a line for where you want your extreme left, and then measure for your extreme right line.

Next you need to draw your envelope line. These give you the contour of your subject. Remember to measure carefully. Next you can measure and lay in the part of the contour lines that you need. You can now consider if your countour lines will still be of benefit for you for other lines. If not, you can go ahead and erase those lines.

Next, you're going to put your plumb line in, and then your cross bar and follow-through lines if you have them. Now lay in the rest of your drawing in soft fluffy strokes. Try to do some things by sight at this point. You need to try to develop the ability to measure with your eyes, and if you rely to heavily on your calipers, you might not be getting the full benefit from the exercise. On the other hand, precise measurements are essential for realistic art, so make sure you're not guesstimating to much.

You always want to criticize your work before you lay in your 2nd layer of your drawing. Make sure you examine your drawing from a distance. A break can help you see things more clearly. Something obvious may be wrong and you can't tell until after you have rested your eyes. Use your calipers and check the lines you estimated on, if you did. Make sure everything is right because your about to lay in lines that are not very erasable in charcoal. Now you can erase all of your guidelines, but keep your notational box, the negative space can still help you, and it won't interfere with your drawing.

Now that all your measurement check out it's time to lay in your lines. Keep watching your refrence as you lay in these lines.

Steps

1. Form your notational space box so that you can measure your negative space (unused space)

2. Extend the lines Bargue gave you to your notational box. You won’t need an envelope here, but can you find any useful follow through lines?

3. Draw the exact box on your drawing, very light, and remember the carpenters rule, measure twice, draw once.

4. Start your drawing with light fluffy strokes

5. Finish all your underdrawings, take a break, and look at your picture from a distance

6. Scrutinize your work, look for errors, double check measurement

7. Make any needed adjustments

8. Erase your reference lines

9. Draw your second layer, keep looking at your reference plate as you draw

10. Make finishing touches

11. Improve line quality

Drawing tip

View your subject as a pattern of visual lines, shapes, and values instead of a "face" instead of seeing the face as a whole, see light and dark on the face. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. Take pieces of value, shapes, edges, and later color, and we have to figure out how to put these together in a way that makes sense.

Complete you're underdrawing,

Measure everything

Finish your drawing

Criticize your work

Examine from a distance

Make Final Touches

REMEMBER

These parallel lines used to form shadows are called hatching marks. It’s a very popular and effective way of demonstrating value (light and dark). It consists of simple rows of parallel lines placed closely together. Shadows are the most common way they are used, but keep in mind that when painting, artists sometimes use light hatchings to brighten an area. The hatching can be at any angle. Some hatch marks are closer together. When you increase the density of hatch marks, the area will appear darker, like a heavier darker shadow, which can be useful for creating value variations.

Introduction to Hands

Final touches

For the video I took my old drawing from when I was taking this class in art school. It has a lot of problems, but as I have said before, it was my best at the time. The video will show you how I should have finished the drawing. How to get the deep blacks in the plate. How to use a blending stump to give soft edges. You will see more about using very fine sandpaper on a charcoal drawing (on 65+ lb paper) Take note that I hardly used my kneaded eraser at all, even though some measurements were quite off. Don't be quick to erase a lot, or quick to throw away you're drawing. A lot of problems will work themselves out on their own in a layered drawing

At this point in a drawing a kneaded eraser may not be working well anyway (if you're using charcoal). It may just not adequately erase what you need it to erase. Try dabbing the charcoal with the kneaded eraser, then folding a piece of very fine sandpaper to a precision point and erasing with sandpaper (600+ grit). It will take charcoal away that the eraser couldn't get. Obviously, you have to be careful not to over sand, since you're working on paper.

I just wanted to mention that the perspective from the overhead camera it looks like the measurements are way off, but the measurements are actually accurate.

Shadow Value

Jet black

When you want to make something jet black, you need to make layers. Layer of soft, layer of hard, and then soft again is how I may do it. Beware that the blending stick will knock the charcoal way down in value, so I would reserve it for edges, if you're going for jet black.

Darker Middle tones

As mentioned, the blending stick will significantly reduce you values, as it smooths out the grainy texture of charcoal. So, and easy way to achieve a darker middle tone is to lay in dark values and bring them down with a stump.

Try to focus on light while you draw this assignment. Have you ever noticed how even in the darkest places, like the shadows under thick bushes, you often will still find some brighter places where light makes its way through. Likewise, even on a very bright sunny day, you're still going to find those deep dark shadows under the thickets.

Similarly, as we advance in our plates, we are going to see more high tonal contrast, and more middle tones.

Since art is so much like music, I'm going to use another piano analogy. You wouldn't play piano and ignore your lowest octaves. Nor would you want to omit the higher octaves.  Rather tremble and bass work together to form a harmonious and pleasant piece on the piano. The same is true with art. You need a full tonal range working in harmony to achieve a beautiful drawing.

This Assignment is to draw a head. Remember to do your drawing in layers, as you have learned. Each layer will get better, don't feel limited to three layers. If you feel like your drawing needs 4 or 5, go for it. Make sure you measure frequently, and don't try to take shortcuts on this exercise. Make your box, contour envelope, and follow through lines on your reference. Carefully transfer them to drawing. I would use graphite, so it erases easier. This is going to be a drawing that you want to keep and be proud of.

Now that you have developed good drawing skills, and spent time developing an eye that can measure accurately, I'm going to teach you methods to get your measurements faster. I didn't teach you these methods sooner, because you needed to spend time doing things th hard way, so that you could develop a necessary skill that all artist should have.

Please don't overuse these techniques. You don't want to be dependent on them.

Carbon Transfer Directions

1. Run your compressed charcoal over the back.

(It doesn't have to be compressed, it's just faster and easier)

2. Rub it in a little

3. Test to make sure the charcoal won't make a mess

4. Line it up straight

5. Mark your corners in case you slip

6. Trace the outline of your darks

7. Don't try to get every detail from a transfer, just major measurements

Transparency Film

Transparency film is clear plastic that can go through a printer.

Printing your resource on it will make a quick guide that you can put over you're drawing to check your measurements.

If you put it on your easel with white paper behind it, it gives you a clear image.

If you put it on top of your paper resource, it will create a heavy contrast image so that you can better see your form shadows and where the bright highlights actually are.

You may want to try using a phone projector to get your measurements, especially if your drawing bigger than your resource photo.

Foldable Guide

Print an extra copy of your resource photo to use as a foldable guide. When using this method start at the top of your drawing and work your way down to avoid smudges. Make sure your drawing has been sealed with a fixit and had time to dry. Fold your paper at the top of the area you focused on and hold your resource directly below that part of the drawing. Make sure you use the edge of your paper like a square to get a perfectly straight fold. Spend some time windowing in that area. (To window in means to focus on one area at a time) You may want to start at the forehead if your subject is a person. Fold your paper at the top of the hair and hold your printed resource directly below. Next, fold just above the eyebrows. Then just above the eyes, and so on. then spray your fixit and let it dry

On your next layer you will do the same thing except vertically. Start on the left side of the face and make your way to the right side.

For students, these close comparisons will be more accurate and easier than the traditional drawing method. As with all these short cuts I want to warn you not to become overly reliant on them. But if you're having problems and can't exactly see what's wrong, this can really be useful to narrow down the problem.

Looseness

Looseness should describe how a drawing feels. Details should be accurate, measurement must be precise, but overall edges should be soft and transitions smooth. Very detailed work can look tight or stiff. It takes longer, and it’s just not as appealing.

What is gesture drawing, and how to do it

Goals

Set a goal of what you want to accomplish in the time you have