Black & White

There are 2 tools contained within the Black & White medium: charcoal & pencil. Charcoal is the recommended tool to learn after Chalk Pastel because of the similarity in how they are applied and blended. With Charcoal, students learn to portray images in different shades of grey or black & white. As with Pastel, you can use the large, flat edge or the small, round edge to create different effects. Charcoal smudges easily, so artists using this medium learn to properly cover their artwork during its creation and after. Occasionally, for more contrast, we instruct our students to use white pastel alongside charcoal which allows them to create a different look and feel than with Charcoal alone. Once you have created at least 2 – 3 pictures using Charcoal, we recommend moving on to Acrylic paint.

The second tool in the Black & White medium is Pencil. It is another tool that can be used to portray images in grey or black & white although it is more difficult to use compared to Charcoal. There are different lead weights of Pencil available; Artfully Yours uses pencils ranging from HB to 8B. The varying weights of pencils give you a nice range of options from light to dark. While building the different shades you must start with the light and build up the darks around the lighter areas where needed.

We do not recommend pencil for beginner artists but rather for teenagers and adults with sufficient experience. Pencil is a technique that needs to be layered and built up more than the other mediums to get the variations of shades and highlights, and therefore, it takes longer to complete a project. Once an artist has completed several projects in pencil, you can discuss which medium to learn next with your teacher at Artfully Yours.