How To Sketch and Draw a Realistic Puppy in Charcoal

This series is all about learning how to have fun with charcoal pencils and using them to create beautiful drawings! In this class, we shall be focused on creating a realistic charcoal drawing of a puppy.

Join me as I take you through my process of evaluating royalty-free reference images, changing them into grayscale photos with striking values, creating the sketch, laying down the values, and finally bringing it all together to a final, striking piece of work.

Don’t worry if you are a beginner as this class is made with you in mind! If you have absolutely no background in charcoal and shading, keep an eye out for my class on fundamentals of charcoal drawing. So, if you've ever been curious about using charcoal as a medium or would just like to try something different, join me in this class of The Charcoal Series!

The materials that you will need are:

• Any device with a screen, like a phone, laptop, tablet, or desktop that can access the internet.

• Any basic photo editing software.

• Not completely necessary, but the ability to print your reference image.

• Charcoal pencils. Having 2-3 pencils of a variety of hardness is great. I mainly use my 6B, 4B, and 2B pencils, and sometimes add in my basic hard charcoal pencil.

• Graphite pencil.

• Kneaded eraser.

• Tombow mono zero eraser. If you can’t get this, you can use a razor to shape a hard eraser into a slim point to make the bright highlight details.

• Blending stumps. If you don't have this, you can use q-tips.

• Sharpener.

• Any soft-bristled brush you have available. Anything between a size 4 and size 8 is enough.

• Heavier, rough paper to draw on.

• A piece of spare paper to prevent smudging.

• Masking tape.