Being one of my boot camp classes, I aim to give you an understanding of charcoal and build your familiarity and skill with it. You'll learn to use it to achieve your desired results with a process you can always rely on, preserve it, and I'll even give you some next steps and inspiration to keep your curiosity flame burning bright with possibilities.

** How much and what you post to the project section is always up to you, but to really grow your skills, I suggest these as the specific exercises I’d like to see to watch you progress: **

First things first - we do a warm-up.
I do this same warm-up with my in-person students before we get into the core of the lessons - even if the lesson isn’t about charcoal. Warm-ups are crucial for drawing and painting just as they are for athletics or performing. We’ll do it a few chapters from now, after some other stuff you need to know first about materials. I wanna see your warm-up scribbles in your project.

Part one of four:
Mastering seeing and creating values in willow or vine charcoal.
Bonus points: print and construct your value scale tool from my downloadable pdf.

Part two of four:
Manipulating and erasing charcoal. I’ll show you my reference sheets if you’ll show me yours…

Part three of four:
Building a drawing in willow charcoal. I want to see your drawing in stages, so take a few progress shots along the way. This drawing-building process will never fail you.

Part four of four:
Exploring charcoal’s cousins and dabbling with mixed media uses for charcoal.

(There is a handy graphic in the class outlining all of this. I've also included it in the downloadable material.)

Of course there’s more. I wouldn’t let you into my charcoal passion without opening up a bunch of next steps for you!
Extra stuff you might like to do after all of the above is completed:
- Use my hand-picked references to practice your build-a-drawing-in-charcoal skills. Identify the values and then sculpt that drawing into existence. Use your handy value scale tool to help.
- If you didn’t make that value scale earlier, now is your chance.
- Make your own liquid charcoal using the tips I share.
- Make your own willow charcoal! I tell you about my process.

This goes far beyond a typical charcoal drawing fundamentals class...

You’ve got a lot to do, so hop to it, my dusty-fingered art soldiers (I mean, students…). ;)

Pause and revisit this class whenever you need to catch up or refresh your skills; I’m here for you.
My Boot Camp classes are always about no-nonsense, hard work and skill-building, so I want to see some sweat in those projects.
I promise, you will improve and discover some new ways to work along the way.

I'm so thrilled you're here today. Let's get to it.

Jessica Ray

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