I’m really struggling with drawing flowers this is with willow charcoal. It’s just not working at all for me it’s not smooth it looks like I’m mentally sick etc someone pleaseee help me 🙏
Actually, it looks pretty good. My recommendation is that you try to bring out the flowers and add depth. Take a clean paper towel, and using a pointed end, carefully wipe away portions of the interior flower to bring it to life. You’ll be amazed. If you mess up, try again. Remember, it’s a skill you’re learning. It takes time.
It looks like you're using a pretty toothy paper, so I doubt it's going to get much smoother than what you've got.
What sorts of tools are you using other than willow charcoal? If you're going with just willow as your only charcoal, you have to accept that it's very mobile on the page; it doesn't have any binder in it. It will move around a lot so you have to be gentle with it, and you need to have a process in mind before you start. Have you used charcoal at all before?
There's two types of charcoals: natural ones, and compressed ones.
Willow and vine charcoal are natural. They're literally willow twigs and vines - usually grape vines - that've been carbonized.
All other charcoal tools - compressed charcoal sticks, charcoal pencils, etc - are compressed. You take loose charcoal, mix it with some amount of binder, and press it into shape. Harder versions have more binder, softer ones have less. Softer ones will go on more smoothly but be more mobile on the page. Harder ones will be 'scratchier' but put down more definitive marks that won't move around so easily.
Where exactly is the best place to draw the line between those two is something you have to figure out through trying different ones. I'd recommend a set of Generals charcoal pencils, one of the ones with a 2, 4, and 6 hardness. 2's are usually the ones I reach for the most often, but that's just me.
I typed up a long response to OP further down in the comments, some of that might be helpful. If you only take one thing away from it, drawing with your erasers more than with your pencil should be the one thing.
Something I didn't mention in that reply, too: When you're first getting used to it, it can help to put down an initial light block-in drawing in something that won't erase or wipe away easily. Nathan Fowkes book on portrait drawing in charcoal recommends orange colored pencil; the orange color just gets lost in the charcoal by the time you get to the end. You can make out a bit of it here and there in this bust drawing I did awhile back.
Well, seems like you have lots of content already for the starter pack! This is so helpful, thank you. Especially the tip with the orange pencil, that's smart.
Yes unfortunately I’ve been trying to get better for a bit now and the only other charcoal I have is compressed and the charcoal pencils which I think are the same thing as the compressed
A combination of a soft, mobile charcoal to start and then a compressed charcoal / charcoal pencils to finish works really well together.
If you can get your hands on some smooth newsprint paper, that's also really good for working on with charcoal.
An assortment of erasers are something you really want to have on hand as well. You really have to think of working in charcoal as less like drawing and more like painting; the charcoal is your black paint, and your erasers are white. Kneaded erasers are like soft brushes, tougher vinyl or rubber erasers are like hard ones. A fine eraser like a Mono Zero is handy but if you don't have one, you can just slice pieces off of a big vinyl eraser to give you sharp edges or smaller points.
Actual paintbrushes are handy, too. If you put down an area with the charcoal that's too dark and want to lighten it, you can brush at with the paint brush. Tough bristle brushes are more aggressive and take away more charcoal; soft synthetic brushes will take away less. They can be dirt cheap brushes if you don't have any already. You're not going to be worried about them shedding hairs or anything. You can use them to darken light areas too, but putting down a really dark area with lots of charcoal and brushing it to pick some charcoal up in the brush, as if it was a palette of paint.
A good basic process with charcoal works like this:
With the willow charcoal, you block in the general drawing. Big shapes, big areas of value, to get a general idea of what the whole thing's going to look like.
Then you grab a paper towel or something similar and wipe the whole drawing down. This should leave you with a ghost of a drawing still visible, and the whole page toned to a middle value.
Then you work out of that middle value: punch the darker areas back in with your willow charcoal or charcoal pencils, and bring up lighter areas with your erasers. If you lighten an area too much, you just push a little charcoal back into it with your dirty paper towel, or a finger, or a paintbrush.
Working vertically will help with every part of this process. It'll keep you from having to rest your hand on the page. A mahl stick of some sort to rest your arm on, same as if you were painting, is invaluable.
I can't stress this enough, though: You do most of the drawing with erasers, not with the charcoal itself.
I don't usually do a lot of floral drawing or painting but I did do one in charcoal for a class awhile back. Again, most of the drawing was done with the eraser into mid-tone charcoal passages, not with the charcoal onto white paper.
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u/VeleKobas Jul 06 '26
Don’t fear the ‘ugly stage’; embrace it, it will treat you well if you don’t run away from it.