Charcoal and Graphite

Everybody loves working with a good bit of charcoal or graphite.  They can be the most liberating of the drawing mediums, allowing you to sketch away loosely and create beautiful, deep, dark tones with the greatest of ease.  Charcoal is the favoured medium by a huge number of artists, which is pretty good going when all it is is a bit of charred wood!

There are two different types of charcoal available, both offering completely different drawing aesthetics: willow charcoal, which is pretty much just the raw stick that can be broken and blended with ease and is great for rough sketching, and compressed charcoal, which is all the little dusty bits that have been compressed into a pastel-like stick, offering a much stronger and less dusty drawing medium.

If graphite’s more your thing we have a good selection of graphite sticks that can either be the same size and shape as a pencil, enabling you to sharpen it and so forth, or it can be in a pastel form allowing you to cover large areas with tone using the edge of the stick.

Some of the best brands are featured here, including Winsor & Newton, Lyra, Derwent and Conté, giving you an excellent selection of charcoals and graphites to keep you sketching away.