Doodlebug Dabblings: charcoal pet portraits

Each child in the Pets-n-Art camp had the opportunity to create a portrait of their pet in charcoal. First, each child just covered a piece of white charcoal paper with a charcoal rubbing that they then blended into the paper using either their hand or paper towel.

Krystal. 7 year old

I had each child start by creating a blind contour drawing. I find this is a great way for them to get shape onto the paper, really study and discover the subject, and take a bit of the fear of "too hard" out of the equation.

Pushka. 5 year old

If you look closely, you will see the original pencil drawings.

Fiddy. 9 year old

Once they finished the blind contour drawing, I told them they could correct anything they wanted using the charcoal. I had to convince some of them that no one would pay attention to the original drawings in the end. I asked them to focus on the contour line from head to tail on their pet first with the charcoal.

Pushka. 7 year old

Then using a gummy eraser, I asked each of them to take out all the highlights they saw on their pet reference picture.

Tiggs. 7 year old

From there, I asked each of them to use the charcoal and color in all the darkest areas on their pet. By having them pay attention to shapes of white or black, it does what I call "shut off the brain" and they no longer draw what they think they see but what they really see.

Some of the kids were quite taken aback when these two steps were finished with what they had on the paper. They were so excited to see that it was in fact not so hard to draw their pet.

7 year old

From there, using either white charcoal or the black charcoal, they began to add the tones into the work, blending as they went to create their final work.