6 Common Mistakes Drawing with Vine Charcoal

Utilizing vine charcoal for drawing faces is highly rewarding, but it presents challenges that can result in common errors. Here, I outline 6 mistakes that are frequently observed.

1. Overlooking how light vine charcoal is: It's inherently light and easily erasable, which makes it great for initial sketches and soft shading. However, many people apply hard pressure or layer excessively, trying to achieve darker tones. This can result in smudgy, uncontrollable lines that are difficult to refine or erase, leading to a loss of detail and definition in the drawing.

2. Skipping Fixative: Vine charcoal very loose on the paper, and many people forget to apply a fixative spray to secure their work. Without fixative, the drawing is prone to smudging, especially if you continue working on other parts of the face or if the work is handled improperly. This ruins the delicate details of the portrait, particularly the halftones.

Don't overuse it on rich darks as it can alter the value and make it look dull.

3. Relying on Vine charcoal: Yes it's great, but not ideal for everything. Some people make the mistake of relying solely on vine charcoal without incorporating compressed and charcoal pencils for darker details and finer lines.

This can limit the depth and definition of the portrait, making it less impactful.

4. Neglecting Paper Texture: The tooth of the paper (texture) plays a crucial role in how vine charcoal adheres and spreads. Some artists use various of low quality papers, which don't hold the charcoal well, resulting in patchy or uneven shading. Conversely, using too rough a paper can create a grainy effect, that won't be suitable for rendering the subtle gradients of a face.

5. Inaccurate Proportions: Vine charcoal is great for drawing out basic shapes, but if you rush into adding details without first ensuring the proportions of the face are correct, the drawing quickly becomes distorted. 

Without caution, these mistakes can be hard to correct, leading to an inaccurate or unbalanced portrait.

Overblending: Blending is essential when working with vine charcoal to achieve smooth transitions and realistic shading. However, overdoing it can lead to a loss of contrast and create muddy values, making the face look dull.

Remember to maintain a balance, identify the lost and found edges, preserving some crisp lines and areas of higher contrast to keep the drawing dynamic.

So, by being mindful of these common mistakes, artists like yourselves can harness the unique properties of vine charcoal to create more expressive and moody portraits.

The full analysis with 10 more mistakes to look out for are available on Patreon.