Difference Between Charcoal and Color Pencil Sketches
Charcoal Painting is an amazing painting technique having diverse characteristics, that artists are adopting. Charcoal can produce exceptionally brilliant or strong black lines, and explore higher contrast and allow to develop visually rich toned artworks.
The history behind the charcoal use as painting media is very ancient and as per evidence charcoal drawing can be traced back at least 30 thousand years ago. The modern charcoal drawing began somewhere in the 17th century. One of the first well known artists to utilize charcoal as a primary medium was
Albrecht Durer,
Robert Longo,
William Kentridge,
Dan Pyle etc.
On the other hand, The color pencil sketch is a type of art similar to pencil sketching, but the only difference is that it has a wide range of colors instead of just black. Color pencils can produce highly saturated, rich, deep, and luminous paintings. Color Pencil sketch is a part of Pencil Sketching, which is gaining respect among artists, galleries, and collectors.
Similar to the Pencil Sketching, there is no known history of color pencil sketching. But we have seen many artists get influenced by this type of paintings, those were
CJ Hendry,
Marco Mazzoni,
Veronica Winters etc. Also there is a record of using oldest known color pencil sketching by
Johann Sebastian Staedtler around 1834 AD.
Charcoal sticks are manufactured primarily of charcoal powder such as burned willow or grapevine, and a binding agent, such as wax or gum, for use in charcoal painting. It is sometimes made without the use of binders by removing the oxygen from the charcoal powder during the manufacturing process.
Charcoal is a brittle, dry art media made of finely crushed organic ingredients held together by a gum or wax binder, or produced without binders by removing oxygen from the material during the manufacturing process.
On the contrary, Ordinary colored pencils are not the same as artistic colored pencils. Regular color pencil have less wax and pigment than professional art pencils. Colors that are truly rich, deep, and luminous are produced by artistic quality pencils. It's possible that the finished painting will be much smooth and colorful that it will look like a complete painting. Check here some
color pencil paintings.
Charcoal may produce exceptionally brilliant or strong black lines, but they are difficult to remove entirely. Using charcoal will allow artists to explore higher contrast and allow to develop visually rich toned artworks. These charcoal pencils are popular among artists because to their versatile properties, such as a scratchy texture that leaves a less permanent impression than other visual art media. Here are some
charcoal artworks for you.
But, Colored pencils allow artists to add precision and detail to their sketches while also creating vibrant artworks. When compared to other painting materials, colored pencils are inexpensive and simple to use. Colored pencils enable depth, control, and precision. We can use fewer layers for an oil-paint effect or more for a softer appearance. Also it is so portable to carry that we can work practically anywhere with
colored pencils.
Because charcoal specially the powdered charcoal or charcoal stick is a dry media, it may be applied to practically any surface, from smooth to very rough. In charcoal drawings, fixatives are frequently used to harden the position and prevent dust from being erased or rubbed on the charcoal. Using white charcoal pencils or white powdered charcoal along with black charcoal is also provides more versatile output.
In opposition, Color pencil is a type of pencil so it is obviously found as pencil form only, though sometimes pencil powders are used to blend the color pencil. Pencil powders are non-toxic, archival, dry lubricant for the colored pencil medium allows the artist to blend colors without the use of solvents. Even a light coat of fixative or varnish will provide protection for your colored pencil drawing from external damaging factors like dust, sunlight, heat etc.
For their artworks, professional artists use various forms of charcoals such as sticks, crayons, powder, pencils, and so on. Sticks, sometimes known as compressed charcoal, can be firm or soft, and depending on their hardness, they can produce bright or dark lines. Charcoal powders are used to make patterns and pouncing, which is a process of transferring patterns from one surface to another. Charcoal pencils are made of compressed charcoal that is enclosed in a hardwood jacket and are commonly used for fine, crisp, and detailed sketching.
Instead, Along with paper, colored pencils can be used on a wide range of surfaces such as wood, plastic, metal, clay etc. Colored pencils can be used for color drawings with light strokes to bring out the colors on the paper, or they can be used to create continuous layers of numerous color layers. Because pencil are essentially a dry material, and the drying time is negligible.
Professional color pencil artists focus on various aspects while painting with color pencils such as Layer Colors, Pencil Pressure, Quality of medium, and most importantly if they use papers they greatly focus on paper texture and weight. For multiple layer blending Rough paper is used, for textured finish medium grain paper or cold press or vellum paper is used and for fine and detailed colors hot press, plate or fine grain paper is used. Moreover heavy weight paper is used for blending with solvents or combining your pencils with wet media.
The charcoal stick or powder used for charcoal painting is extracted from natural resources like willow or vine (typically grape vine), therefore it is non-toxic as well as it is vegan freindly type painting media.
Yet, Unlike the
graphite pencils, the artists colored pencils are made up of the color pigments blended by the wax, oil or resin, therefore it is also non-toxic, but sometimes it is found containing beeswax or
casein glue (an adhesive binder based on animal
proteins) to blend the color pigment and so it is not always the vegan friendly. But pencils like
Faber Castell Polychromos, certain
Derwent pencils are found as vegan friendly.
Credit to @remy Color Pencil