Charcoal drawings have been produced since early humans used burned twigs to draw on cave walls. It was and continues to be a great tool for making an expressive mark. Artists today continue in that tradition using real charcoal, compressed charcoal in pencils, and various conte pencils and chalks.
Some charcoal is derived from burned hardwood. Another type, frequently called vine charcoal, is made from tree twigs, like the willow. Bamboo is yet another source, used in the traditional Japanese Sumi-e. Modern charcoal production for art materials uses a binder of gum to compress the charcoal and create various degrees of hardness in the drawing implement.
Charcoal drawings are often made as preliminary first drafts of a painting. Charcoal is a very expressive medium that yields a mark that responds well to pressure. An accumulation of carbon dust is deposited on the paper or canvas. Generally a fixative is sprayed on the drawing to minimize accidental smearing.
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were avid users of charcoal. In the tradition of these great masters, we humbly suggest that we can get similar effects using Photoshop. Our charcoal is going to be made up of pixels.
Since charcoal is a black-and-white medium, you might consider using some of your black-and-white photographs for this technique. If you choose a color image, it is, of course, easy to desaturate your photo, converting it to a black-and-white image.
Original photograph of a Camellia flower.
Select a photograph that you would like to convert into a charcoal drawing. Correct any flaws on that photograph first, using tools like the Clone Stamp tool.
Add a new layer. Select a color for this layer. Select the layer and Edit > Fill with the color you have selected for your charcoal paper. This is like shopping in an art supply store, browsing through the drawers of various papers, looking for the exact shade of charcoal paper that you would like to use.
Add a charcoal paper layer.
Copy the corrected background photo and place it on top of the stack of layers. On this new layer use Filters > Stylize > Glowing Edges Filter.
Manipulate the Glowing Edges sliders.
Glowing Edges is one of those wacky filters that I couldn’t find a practical use for until I realized that the neon line could be converted to white or black, creating a drawing effect. Violà! My perception of the filter and its possible artistic possibilities changed in an instant.
Most Photoshop users have tried Filters > Stylize > Find Edges as a method of achieving a line drawing. Although Find Edges does create a line drawing, as it looks for differences along the edge of items, it does not give you any sliders to manipulate the brightness and thickness of those liners. Glowing Edges, its digital cousin, gives you tools to control the quality of your lines. When using Glowing Edges we generally want the line to be narrow and bright, with increased smoothness.
The Glowing Edges filter produces a black background with a neon, multicolored line drawing. Don’t be dismayed; this is just the means to the desired end. Go to Image > Adjustments > Invert. That will convert the image to a white background. Next, use Image > Adjustments > Desaturate to create a black-and-white line drawing.
Creating a line drawing.
Multiply Blending Mode.
Copy the corrected background layer yet another time and place it at the top of your layer stack. Use Image > Adjustments > Desaturate, turning it into a black-and-white photo. Curves was used to increase the contrast of the image.
New charcoal layer.
On this black-and-white photo layer go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise > Monochromatic and Gaussian. This will form your granular charcoal dust specks in the finished piece of artwork.
Making charcoal dust.
Staying on that top layer, go to Layer > Layer Masks > Hide All. That will immediately hide the current layer. Select a brush and paint with white on the mask, revealing those charcoal specks. One of our favorite brushes for this task is found in the Dry Media Brush Library and is called Charcoal Paper Brush.
Using a mask to “deposit” the charcoal dust specks.
We painted the flower area using white on the mask with that rough, textured brush. It yields a grainy, sketch-like effect due to the combination of the Add Noise filter and the textured brush that we are using.
”Painting” on the charcoal specks.
Select the Paper Layer and go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Pattern and then click OK. This creates a Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer. There are so many varieties of textured patterns to choose from. We chose the Charcoal Flecks Pattern, located in the Grayscale Paper Library. We increased the scale (or repeat of the pattern) to 536%. The Blending Mode for the Pattern Fill Adjustment Layer was set to Multiply.
Selecting a paper texture.
It is always a wise choice to save your file with all the layers intact, in case you ever want to come back and make alterations. We generally save in the psd format (Photoshop Document). You can then flatten the document and use the Save As command. Using this method, you will not accidentally write over your layered original file. Another possibility is to use the Save and Copy option, in the Save As dialog.
Saving the image for future changes.
Our next task is to create some sketchy edges for our image. The file was flattened and a new layer was created and filled with white (Edit > Fill > Choose White). We wanted this white layer to be underneath our image layer. Photoshop will not allow you to put a layer underneath a layer that is called Background. It is sort of like trying to put some building materials underneath the bedrock of the earth. If, however, the name of the layer is not Background, you will be okay. So simply change the name of the Background Layer. Double-click on the name Background, and type a new name in the menu box. This known as promoting a Background Layer to a Standard Layer. You can also drag the lock icon to the trash to promote.
Add a Layer Mask to the Image Layer (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All). Paint on the mask with a rough, textured brush loaded with the color black. Do that all around the edges, revealing the pure white layer underneath.
Don’t worry if you overdo it. A Layer Mask is totally forgiving. If you find you have gone too far, just switch to the color white on your mask to reverse any imperfections.
Duplicate this layer by dragging the layer to the new layer icon at the bottom of the Layer Palette. Set the Blending Mode to Multiply and reduce the opacity on this duplicate layer. We used 62% opacity. We continued to paint a bit more with black on the mask edges.
Making sketchy edges.
The charcoal Camellia seemed to have an antique quality to it, so to accent that feel a new layer was added and filled with a soft butterscotch color. The Blending Mode was set to Multiply and the opacity was lowered until the desired effect was achieved.
One of the best side effects of this technique is the absence of charcoal dust under your fingernails, the lack of dust smeared up your drawing arm, and no toxic fumes from fixative spray. Wouldn’t Leonardo or Michelangelo be jealous?
Antique effect.
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