Charcoal is one of the most widely used art mediums. Knowing how to make charcoal for drawing and sketching is a handy skill to have. Now you can make your own artist charcoal at home and gain the satisfaction of saying, “I made it myself.” Plus your willow charcoal is of higher quality and more sustainable than anything you can buy at your artist supply store.
Caution – Fire Hazard:
Homeschoolers should have adult supervision for this craft. Fire is involved. Use precaution when starting a fire outdoors. Obey all fire laws and campfire laws in your area. If you are doing this with an open fire, keep a fire extinguisher or source of water close by to extinguish flames and prevent wild fires. If you are doing this indoors in an enclosed wood stove be cautious. Avoid open flames.
Three types of artist charcoal:
- Powdered charcoal which is charcoal that is powdered into a fine dust. It is used to cover large areas of a drawing. It can be messy.
- Compressed charcoal is powdered charcoal that has been mixed with wax or resin and compressed to form a stick. It is harder than willow or vine charcoal. It is not as messy as powdered charcoal. Since it’s harder it can be sharpened for making fine lines. This gives the artist more control. Compressed charcoal is break resistant and gives darker lines.
- Willow or Vine charcoal is made with sticks from grape vines or willow. It is a softer charcoal that is made without a binding agent. This allows it to be erased more easily than compressed charcoal. This is the kind of charcoal usually used to sketch a painting, prior to laying down colour. It allows for detailed shading.
Willow charcoal
Willow is a very handy plant to have around. It grows quickly, is useful for basketry, medicine, rooting other plants, is a carbon sequester, and makes an excellent charcoal for drawing. If you harvest willow for medicine, you probably peel the bark and are left with several white bark-less willow rods and nothing to do with them. These white willow rods are perfect for making into high quality artistsโ charcoal. Although it’s easiest to peel willow rods in the spring, when the sap is rising, you can make willow charcoal year-round.
Wood becomes charcoal when, in the exclusion of oxygen, the flammable gasses and water in the wood are pushed out by heat and consumed. What is left behind is the carbonized wood we know as charcoal. While charcoal can be made using many different methods, making artistsโ charcoal requires a fair degree of control over the process, and the ability to pull the charcoal out at any time.
Artistsโ charcoal is made using a similar process to making charcloth, which is carbonized cotton or linen fabric. To make willow charcoal, you use a moderately sealed tin to hold the willow pieces. An altoid tin is perfect.
The tin keeps the fire from direct contact with the willow pieces, while still letting the flammable wood gasses escape and be consumed in the fire itself. The tin can be pulled out of the fire at any time and let cool to check on the progress. However, the tin should not be opened when hot, as the charcoal rods could spontaneously combust. Always cool the tin completely before opening.
You’ll need:
Peeled willow rods
Pruning shears to cut the willow rods
An empty altoid tin, or other sealable tin
A fire โ your woodstove or a small campfire can both work.
Making Artists Charcoal:
The peeled willow rods should sit overnight to let them dry out a bit before starting your charcoaling process. Cut your peeled, and slightly dry, willow rods into lengths that will just fit inside your tin. If you are using an altoid tin, that would make the willow pieces 3 inches long.
Cut enough sticks to completely fill the tin. Even thin willow is surprisingly tough when charcoaled, so donโt be afraid to use the entire length of your peeled willow rod. One or two, 3-5 foot rods, should give you enough willow to fill an altoid tin. The willow will shrink in the charcoaling process, and two full tins of prepared willow will fit into a single tin after they are turned to charcoal.
Once the tin is filled, place it within your fire. This can be an outdoor campfire, or your indoor woodstove. My first experiment used an outdoor pit fire, from which I cut off all oxygen soon after dropping the tin of willow sticks in. The second and third time, I used our wood cook stove which had a handy spot below the chimney for putting the tin box, where the heat would hit it, but the fire wouldnโt. Leave your tin in the fire for an hour or two, or as long as one load of firewood last.
If you want to check on your willow sticks while the fire is still going, you can remove the box, with appropriate safety cautions, and let it cool. It can take an hour for the tin to cool enough to not spontaneously combust. Completely charcoaled willow will be black, and have shrunk by 1/3rd to 1/2. When I had the tin in the fireplace, I simply left it there through one evening fire and took the tin out before starting the morning fire, and I had perfect charcoal both times.
As long as one end of the stick has fully charcoaled, you can use it for charcoal drawing. If one end of your willow pieces is not fully charcoaled, but the other end is, you can either put the tin back in the fire, or use the charcoal as-is. The non-charcoaled end can work as a handle, though this charcoal may have a brown tint. My first batch, that didnโt quite work, was put back through the tin in the woodstove and turned out perfectly after the second burn.
Quality control
I found that, even fully charcoaled, the willow sticks did not leave charcoal on my hands when drawing, unlike the softer commercial charcoal sticks that I had tried to use before. If you make more fresh willow charcoal than you need for art, then it will have no petroleum additives or wood preservative additives, and is perfect for any use where you need clean charcoal. (Note that willow charcoal is not the same as activated charcoal. You need one more step to produce activated charcoal.)
Store your charcoal in a clean altoid tin for easy access, and tidy storage. But do retain your charcoal making tin. When youโve used up this batch of charcoal, it only takes a few minutes to set up the burning tin to make some more.
How to draw with charcoal
Charcoal drawing is an exercise in light and dark, shading and the lack of shading that adds definition and delineation to a flat plain.
Unlike other drawing material, charcoal requires a fixative to insure your work of art stays on the paper. This is the charcoal fixative I use. While you can draw with charcoal on regular printer paper, sketch paper or charcoal drawing paper have heavier textures which will improve your drawing experience.
Making your own artist charcoal can provide you with an unlimited supply of high quality charcoal. While the commercial product costs about 50 cents to $2 a stick for quality drawing charcoal. Your own willow is free, and if you already have a fire going, it only takes minutes to set up the tin to start the charcoaling process. And you gain carbon credits because your own willows are carbon sequesters, absorbing more carbon from the air than is given off when they are burned.
Your Turn:
Have you planted a willow tree yet?
I’ve been experimenting with various trees here in Australia. The best results are from fairly soft growths not hard woody stuff but still quite stiff, I’ve used whatever was handy, shaved the outer bark off and cut them to length. Not having a tin I wrapped them loosely in several sheets of aluminium foil folding the edges tight. It only took an hour on the hot coals of a small fire. I didn’t dry them at all beforehand. The results are very pleasing, some are soft and draw quite black while others are harder and lighter, much like the difference in B-B5 pencils. Now at least I have my own supply whenever I want, far superior to manufacture charcoal pencils and just as good as willow and enjoyable to make.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
It has been a very rainy season here and I dont really want to wait for my fire pit to dry out. I also am not accustomed to my wood stove, is a regular stove alright to use?
A regular electric stove won’t get hot enough to make charcoal. You could however use an outdoor fire pit once the weather dries. In that case put the altoid tin inside another tin and settle it in the ashes.
Hello!
I am trying to make some charcoal out of anything I can find on a small island off the coast of Australia as part of a artist residency. I am not sure if there is willow there but there may be some grape vines that I can use. The residency is 4 weeks and am wondering exactly how long should I be drying the grape vines for if i am under a time constraint?
Any help would be appreciated
thank you!
Hi, Emile
When we did the willow we only dried it overnight. I imagine you won’t need to dry grape vines very long. They are more porous than willow. You can also use any of the poplar family branches. Avoid wood that is high in resin or pitch.
Now I understand how biochar is made. Biochar is added to garden soil to enhance plant growth. Just do the same process with a larger container.
This is a fun article.
Thanks
I do not have any willow tree nor grape vines. Can you help me find an alternative?
Poplar trees are a good substitute for willow.
I am just trying with some vine branches and I have put them in the hot oven of my stove. Will this work or do you need the flame of a fire? Also do you have to take the bark off whatever wood is used? I haven’t with this lot but have more boxes filled so if necessary I will “skin” the sticks in them.
I am checking your site to see if there are specific types of plants to use. A joy came to me to see that grape vines can be used. I have an out of control grapevine waiting to be pruned.
I harvest willows, strip them right away then let dry for 6 months. I cut them to fit pint size tin cans with a tin lid. BUT I tap a small nail size hole (bottom side out). I cut the willow to size then pack it tightly. Keep the hole side up. then watch the fun. The gasses stream and scream out of the hole and creates a jet like engine. The gasses ignite and the charcoal sticks remain with very little shrinking. Let cool to touch using common sense but and I think this method avoids re-combustion when you open the tin for your inspection. Oh, I pull the can out of the fire about 20 minutes after the jet flame dies out. Talk about FUN!
Nice willow in the first picture – which is it?
I have will but have always created stools about 3′ tall but I may try the ground cut like in the picture.
Thanks for the information about making charcoal. Much appreciated.
Thank you for these clear and detailed instructions. How does the process or product change when using dry material? I’m pruning my grapes again now (4 July), but won’t fire up my wood stove until sometime in the fall. I can gather willow any time of year.
The key is cutting off the oxygen to prevent combustion.
Thank you for writing this post. I have several arctic willows and a fire pit, so can’t wait to give it a try. My art students will love learning about this process and creating amazing drawings from the results of it. I will also!
I grow willows in Vermont and sell them as dormant cuttings or rods for living structures. I have been asked by a customer for willows for making Artists charcoal. Can you tell me if there are particular willows that make the best charcoal? I have one of the largest collections of willows in North America so I should have something suitable! I’d appreciate your assistant as you know a lot more about this subject than I do!
I used salix alba, salix purpurea varieties — basket willow types. As long as the rod is straight and about pencil thick, I’m not sure the variety matters. Grape vines can also be used. Why don’t you try a few and see what you like best.
Thanks to this Nice Technique! I have got myself some charcoal sticks out of soft branches.I think soft wood needs 1-2 hours & hard woods takes 3 hrs or more to char completely. Recently, I tried some hard woods, it didn’t char completely in about 2 hours. Hopefully, I put therein a worst ‘coloured pencil’ in the box with two colours – red and blue. So, I got two new shades, after it cooked,i.e.,brown grey from the red side & green grey from the blue side. I am trying to get more shades by experimenting different woods.
This is a great post. I’ve saved the information so I can remember to try to make the charcoal. Unfortunately, I’m not a bit artistic, but I still want to make the charcoal.
I get that. It’s so magical.
Charcoal machine to make Artistico Willow,
oh as is done to burn it or how it works,
I look for this because in my country for Fine arts materials are expensive and I can help Artist indicates that Honduras if I have to do to manufacture it in Honduras,
Your help will be of great benefit to our artists,
Thank you.
I have a Pussy Willow bush. Will that work for charcoal?
Yes it will.
I love this! I have a wood stove and my neighbour is an art teacher: now to find me some willow!
It was incredibly fun.
You can also use grape vines. Just dry them first before you charcoal them.