I took this class to level up my blending skills in charcoal - in art, I’ve come to appreciate that some of the same skills, like how to create depth with light and shadow, are pretty much universal, whereas other qualities are very specific to individual mediums. I want to bring out the contrast between the hard but irregular shape of the stones and the soft contours of the sand - I want to explore using charcoal in a more detailed way in the future, but this seemed like a good starting place.

I first started with a study of the light and shadow on the stones (which I divided on my sketch), sketched the image out on Mi-Teintes paper. I built up the background with vine charcoal and a needed eraser, then built up the foreground with the same tools, plus the compressed Nitram charcoal (this was the only part of the picture where I felt things went slightly wrong, as the foreground bot a bit overworked).

The stones were added with vine charcoal and a mono-zero eraser, before building up the darks with Nitram charcoal and putting in the texture with a charcoal pencil. There are a few places where I struggled to blend out the transitions, even with a blending stump, but overall I was happy with the result - it might even serve as a gift to a very zen friend whose house looks very messy, but is really a very carefully considered mix of colour and texture.

As always, your feedback and criticism are very much valued, especially as I look towards tackling more detailed work.