Introducing Charcoal to Fifth Graders — Steemit (2024)

Once my fifth grade art students understood the concept of using shading, and they had done value charts (with pencil) and had created their still-lives of shells using only shading - it was time to introduce charcoal.

I generally like to transition between these media in this order:

Pencil => Charcoal => Ink (fine tip sharpie markers)

And, I like to build the skills of shading in this way:

Line drawing (which most young artists do automatically when they draw)

=> shading with a pencil (you can get darks, mediums & lights using the same pencil)

=> shading with hatching & cross-hatching

=> shading with pointillism

Usually when I have a new group of young art students and I introduce them to charcoal - most of them (usually) have never used it before. And, actually, I like being the one to introduce it to them. I like showing them what they can do with it, what they can expect from it, and then giving them the opportunity to check it out for themselves. I always introduce charcoal using vine charcoal first. Sometimes, I will move on to charcoal pencils.

Vine charcoal can be very messy. It breaks easily, smudges easily, is soft and perfect for beginners. It is common for them to have an instant like or strong dislike for charcoal, and I believe both opinions are valid. If you introduce charcoal to young art students, you will notice that some of them love it and they get it all over themselves - usually covering not just their hands & palms of their hands, but it may also end up on their forearms up to their elbows. Allowing them to have this experience is very important, so don't reprimand them. The first experience with charcoal should be with "practice" or "free-draw" paper anyway, so there should be no concern of them "messing up" anything at this point. Let them dive right in and see how messy they can get - it's part of the fun.

The other type of reaction you will observe from some students is dislike at how it feels, dislike of the sound it makes on the paper, and/or wanting to wash their hands - often. This reaction should also be respected. After all these students are individuals and they SHOULD NOT be expected to all behave in the same way. Make sure they try out the charcoal. They DO still need to use it in the upcoming art project(s), but allow them to wash their hands when they want to so that they feel some control over their own comfort and neatness on their artwork. These students may not "like" charcoal, but their dislike of the feeling of it may enhance their concentration and their attention to detail and cleanliness on their future charcoal drawings. These students may end up liking charcoal pencils rather than sticks of charcoal.

In my daughter's fifth grade class, things pretty much went the way they always have when I have introduced charcoal. We talked about what charcoal is made of - burnt wood. I passed out the vine charcoal, they played around with it. We did value charts using charcoal. I showed them that if they write their name in cursive, then smudge it in one direction, it looks like it's racing across the paper - kinda fun.

Then we started the shell still-lives. I positioned the groups of shells on each table, along with some camellia flowers from my yard at home. the students drew the still-lives in pencil first, and then added the charcoal shading.

Look at that concentration!!

In the past I have sometimes had my students do the whole thing in charcoal, and didn't let them use pencil at all, and I am now thinking that perhaps that would have been best with this class. There are quite a few students in this class who were pretty meticulous with their pencil drawings and then when it was time to add the charcoal, they were very timid with it. I think they were afraid to "mess up" their pencil drawings. Understandable. There were several students who used the charcoal very sparingly, some who pretty much just outlined their drawings with the charcoal (despite all my instructions to use the charcoal for shading and NOT to outline them), and a couple students who ended up completely covering their drawings uniformly, so that the shell drawings sort of were lost in the process. These are all typical things that young artists may end up doing. And, since they are in fifth grade, it is to be expected. The maturity level of these students is still developing, as is their attention to detail, and patience. And, drawing (any kind of drawing) on a regular basis will help them improve these skills over time. So, it is really important for teachers, parents, etc. to recognize this and not put too much emphasis on the outcome of an particular art project. Understanding that the experience of doing the art and the knowledge and skill that is attained through the doing of it is the goal here.

Here are their drawings. Please notice how much effort these students put into this. This is a fairly typical fifth grade class with an even split of boys & girls. Some of the students like art, some not as much. So, when you take into consideration their age, the fact that they were drawing sea shells (not easy!), and using charcoal for the first time - they all did an amazing job! And, their personalities shine through in these drawings. You can see their skill level, their attention to detail and their level of patience in these drawings. They had about a half hour to complete these drawings. Take a look:

The last student (above right) is doing something that I have seen only a couple other students do in the past. For whatever reason, (I'm guessing their brain just works a different way) this student just could not/would not draw the shells in front/behind each other in a group. Instead, she drew each shell lined up next to each other, in a line. When I noticed her doing this, I had her turn her drawing over and start again, and she did it again. Lined up each shell next to each other, not in a group. This is really interesting to me. I talked to the classroom (regular) teacher about her after class, and she said that this student had been "pegged" or "noticed" as a student who was having difficulties in other areas. I didn't pry too much, but I'm guessing there is some sort of psychological thing going on here. I'm not a psychologist, but seeing her do this and understanding that she seems to need/want to separate each object makes me really wonder what she is thinking. Could it be OCD? Autism? or something else? I have only seen a couple other students do this over the years of teaching. I really wish I knew more about this. But, I wanted to bring it to your attention - in case there are other teachers or art teachers reading this. This is really interesting when you start thinking about how our brains work and what happens when we observe things around us.

By the way, charcoal can be (and should be, in my opinion) introduced to younger students, too. Charcoal shouldn't be just reserved for older students. Give it to younger students! Let them start experimenting with it!

Hope you enjoyed this.