Charcoal: darkness and drama in a portrait
Why charcoal suits weathered faces and hard light, and how to draw the light back out with an eraser.
January 2026 · 1 min read
Charcoal is bolder than pencil. It darkens fast, shows skin as rough texture, and is perfect for faces with lines and creases. That is why most of my portraits of older men are drawn in charcoal.
Start with the dark, not the line
With charcoal, instead of drawing an outline around the face, first cover the whole page with a grey layer. Then, with a kneaded eraser, pull the light out of the darkness. Rather than colouring in, you are carving light out.
This subtractive method is what gives a charcoal drawing that inner glow. The brightest parts of the face are really bare paper, freed by the eraser.
