New Technique: Charcoal Pencil + Water

Edit: The finished piece!

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Hi all! Long time no guest post!

I've been messing around with different media lately in anticipation of taking a Mixed Media painting class at this art school in the next state over, and I think I've just discovered my favorite technique of all: using water over charcoal pencil to get a kind of watercolorey look.

I'll post a picture of my sample image a little later, but so far, it's turned out fantastically! I get a lot more intensity variation with charcoal than if I use watercolor, although that might be because I have crappy watercolors, but the black from the charcoal is so much richer. It takes a really fine brush to get it the way I want it, but the plus is, if I get some stray marks where I don't want them, I can kind of erase a little bit, depending on how saturated the paper is.

It's a really fun technique, and the shading can be simple or incredible, depending on skill/familiarity with the media. Since I just started using this technique today, I'm still pretty green, but I love it so far!

If you ever try this technique, post a link in the comments below so I can see how others do it. The more exposure we each get to others' styles in the same media, the better we can learn and improve.

-Elricz

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