Life Drawing With Charcoal

Today we were introduced to drawing with Conte-Crayon/Charcoal, and it was a very different approach to illustration than initially thought, as instead of holding it like a pencil; it is much more preferred to hold it as though it were like a stick of lead, and glide it along the paper with the intend of texturing first, and building on top of it afterwards.

After the session, I went out and looked for books and material online for drawing with charcoal. And ended up finding my first book simply being called; Life Drawing In Charcoal by Douglas Grahams. This book covered very similar ground as what I learned in my class session, but also had shown me how to find the right texturing techniques in casting shadow, and how to make skin feel believable to the viewer of the drawing. 

In also consulting books, I had also found a beginners guide to charcoal drawing book that featured Harry Potter on the front cover. This book had also shown the more mentally-mapped side of drawing rather than life drawing, yet I found it's advice and guide to have some interesting and helpful tips. Such as the use of hard and light strokes; for distances in the foreground and background respectively.