Feb's ArtSnacks box came with some charcoal pencils and you know, I've never really used it before. In highschool I think we used willow charcoal on occasion for some unenthusiastic gesture drawing. The feeling of charcoal dust all over my hands makes my skin crawl, like hearing fingernails on chalkboard! But it turns out there's been a solution to that for 100s of years - just put it in a normal pencil. Anyway, here was my first attempt with them:
I like how the nose and lips turned out, but most of it leaves me unenthusiastic
Now, strap in for some charcoal studies of Augustus Caeser. This drawing below is the first I made of this bust. It is about A5 size in a moleskin sketchbook. Here I was exploring what charcoal could do, the deep darks, revealing the texture of the paper, the way layers of value could be subtly built up
For the next version I tried some new blending techniques: blending with fingers (shiver) and using a paintbrush. Instead of looking at lines, I attempted to block out the shapes of shadow to describe the form. This piece is only 1x2 inches wide.
The most recent piece, I worked on this over a few days. The drawing is still quite small, maybe 50% bigger than the one previous. I only had my small sketchbooks at the time.
I really like the clear improvement I've made by doing the same study, and found it a refreshingly zen activity. I'm thinking I might get a much bigger piece of paper and do a grid study of this bust again. 
