Awaken the Artist Within | Understanding Charcoal Drawing Part III

1. Introduction: Hey. Welcome back to another class. My name is Braden Messer. I am an artist, an author, a YouTuber, a tattoo. I've done just about everything there is doing the visual arts. I'm gonna be your instructor for this one. So awaken the artist within. Understanding Charcoal drawing. This is part three of a three part series that I have made where I'm taking you through, and I'm showing you how you can use what I call the three layered method. To draw different animals. If you've never heard of that, my book, drawing the portrait, step by step lessons for mastering classic techniques for beginners does a very thorough job of going through the method in detail. Yes, I know it's a book on portraits and we're drawing a bird, but it is very applicable. So if that's something that you would find interesting, I'll have a link to pick one up in the description of the class. So what to expect? We're going to be going over, and I'm going to be showing you how you can begin to draw the contour lines of the Kookaburra. Once we have the contour lines drawn, I'm then going to show you a little trick where we can establish what I call frame lines. These frame up the underlying form. Of the image in question. Once we do that, I'm then going to show you how we can start to use soft charcoal for our base layers. Once we have the base layer established, I'm going to show you how you can build those different tones and really accentuate the value scale with medium and hard charcoals. I'm going to be showing you how you can use and medium charcoals in tandem for all of your line work. I'm also going to be showing you some very fun high value retrieval methods with your eraser work. This will really make your plumage in the bird pop. We're going to be doing this one in sections so that you don't get overwhelmed because I know that there's a lot to it, and at the end of it, you should have a very convincing cucabra that you are proud of. I mean, that's what to expect. Now, it wouldn't be Skillshare if you didn't follow along and make your project and upload your project so that I can give you my feedback on it and you can be appreciated by other artists in the community. Then also, Make sure you leave your review of the class. This way, I can showcase your project in my monthly newsletter that comes out in the first half of every single month. So this is a great way for you to get some exposure on the platform and get your name and your art out there for other people to appreciate. The three layered method, especially if you are new to charcoal, is very involved, and there's a lot to take in. So what I would recommend just so that you can get the most out of this class is I would recommend the first go around, just watch the class. Just don't take notes, don't try to draw, watch it and really try to soak in all of the information and the techniques that I'm showing you. Then once you've done that, go back through again and watch only this time, actually follow along and draw and create your project. If you find this really works for you and you're like, Man, this is great. I want to learn more. Well, I do offer one on one consulting here on Skillshare. Basically, I'll teach you how to use the three layered method. I also teach just basic graphite drawing and sketching for portraits, animals. You name it. I can help you draw. That's something that you would be interested in. I have a link at the top of my homepage. You're on Skillshare. So, that's it. That's all. And I hope to see you in class. 2. Contour & Form Frame Lines: For this one, we're going to be using a graphite pencil and a Hoho eraser, a Pentel click eraser, and a mono zero eraser. We're also going to be using a number two and a three 16th smudger, as well as soft medium and hard charcoals. We're also going to be using a sandpaper strip, a piece of tone check paper, and last but not least the brush. Okay. So as with any drawing, the first step is we want to take our graphite pencil and we want to iron out the basic shape of our reference image. And because we're using the graphite, it's extremely easy to erase, if need be, you are completely not committed at this step. We're just trying to more or less get a feel for our image. And if you mess up like I did here, no big deal. Just go ahead and hit that with your Mono zero eraser and redraw. When it comes to this step, it's important to understand that your drawing does not have to be perfect by any means. So much of the time when I'm drawing, if I mess up down the road, I can go ahead and erase graphite that I laid down in this step and then just simply redraw it. So don't think that you're committed. What we're doing here is we're just ironing out and outlining all of the significant tone breaks in our image. And then here, this is what I like to do for you guys. Since form is one of the hardest concepts, not necessarily to comprehend, but to execute on when it comes to laying down your charcoal onto the paper, I like to draw these form lines. And these are to basically just help you comprehend the different contours in the image that we're drawing. 3. Value Building the Beak : Birds can be kind of tricky in that regard. Okay. So we're gonna lay down our tone check paper. We're gonna take some soft charcoal and some medium charcoal and grind it onto our sandpaper strip here. We're gonna lay that down on top of the tone check paper. And then I'm taking my size two smudger. Checking my tone, making sure it's what I want. And I'm starting with the darkest tone that you see in the reference image here. As you can see here, I'm pulling the charcoal from top to bottom. I'm being sure to adhere to those form lines that I laid down initially. This will help the eye of the viewer when they're looking at your image, it'll help them see that form that you're trying to convey. And if your charcoal looks gritty in this step, totally do not worry about that. We're going to be hitting this with our brush, and we're going to be smoothing out the charcoal, and it's going to be giving us a nice gradation between our tones. But here what I'm doing is I'm just trying to solidify the darker tones. I'm taking the brush here. And I'm just hitting this real quick. I'm not pushing too hard. One of the things you'll find as you use the brush more and more is that the brush the brush wants to work for you. And so you don't need to use very much pressure in your hand when you're using it. But I'm just taking charcoal, and I'm just loading up the bec here. And I'm taking my moto zero eraser, and I'm solidifying the line at the top of the becair. Notice how when you look at the reference image, I'm starting on the darkest part of the beak. Of times I find that if you focus on the dark tones first, the rest of the image tends to take care of itself. When you hit it with your brush or more smudgers work, what you'll find is that the charcoal from those darker tones will be overlaid onto those lighter tones. Now we're going to hit with a brusher and just blend it. If it's too dark, don't worry about that. We can go in with our monosur eraser, which of course is our detail eraser and we can basically retrieve those lighter tones, and we can really pull out that value in this image. But here's see how some of the charcoal kind of ran away from us, clean that up with our monozo eraser and get a nice clean line there. And then this is what I was talking about when it comes to retrieving those lighter tones and really accentuating that value as you can do it with your eraser. Just be very mindful in the directions that you're pulling your eraser because just like laying down charcoal can convey different lines and forms, retrieving those lighter values with your eraser work does the exact same thing just on the opposite end of the spectrum. So just keep that in mind. And then here what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure my medium charcoal pencils sharp as can be. I'm just going to put a nice defined line to separate the top part of the beak from the lower part of the peak. Now what I'm going to do is I'm just going to stand my pencil up on end. I'm just going to run that defined line up over the top. There we are. Let's clean this up a little bit. My monos eraser. I'm going to take my medium charcoal and we do the exact same thing on the bottom. Just real light. I don't want this line to be very heavy at all. And then what you can do is you can take your medium charcoal pencil and if you need to pack in it and really solidify those extremely dark, you know, very rich dark tones. I like to do that with my pencil because my pencil I find gives me just a little bit more control than the smudgers does. And so this really gives you that pinpoint accuracy as far as really where you want to solidify those darker tones. As you can see, the texture of this beak itself is pretty gnarly. There's lots of different textures like scratches and different growth patterns on the beak, so we want to be able to speak to that. And then here on the bottom, just like we pinpointed those darker tones with our pencil on the top of the beak. We're doing that exact same thing for the lower part of the beak. And this part, it will leave a grainy texture. But what we're gonna do is we're going to take our size 316 smudger now, and we're just going to essentially do nice tight little circles. And what this is doing is this is blending that charcoal that we just laid down with our medium charcoal pencils it's blending it together, and it's condensing everything and packing it in and giving us a really nice, realistic look when it comes to how the beak actually looks. And because this smudgers is one of the smaller sizes in my arsenal, the cool thing about this is that it really allows you, much like the charcoal pencil gives you that pinpoint control in the wake of smudgers work, the smaller the smudgers, um, typically, the more control you'll have as far as being able to almost do detail shading, if you will, you know, working in a very, very small area. So just keep that in mind. Now what we're gonna do is we're just going through, and just very lightly. Blending all of this charcoal together. This is just solidifying the beak as a whole for us. And here, the monozero eraser, if there's any spots that you need to retrieve any of your highlights, you know, bringing out and accentuating that value, you can do that with your monozero eraser just like I'm doing here. Okay. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna take my 3/16. I'm just going in and I'm darkening up this part of the beak here. Now I'm going to take my medium charcoal. I'm just gonna put a small define line right here. That kind of brings out this part of the beake. And it's kind of grainy, so I don't like that, so I'm gonna hit it with my smudgers. Just kind of pack that in. I'm just gonna retrieve some lighter tones here in the middle with my monozursr. 4. Base Layering the Head & Eye: And then here I don't like any of this because now I'm starting to look towards the face and I'm going to work between the beak and the eye. Remember how I said during the outline step, it doesn't have to be perfect. Well, this is a prime example as to why. This is where I'm going in, I'm giving it more attention, and I'm really solidifying exactly where I'm going to lay that charcoal. Now here's a very important step. This is something that is slightly different from other drawings that we've done. But because the texture of most birds is extremely soft, this is a very important step in the three layered method because what we're doing is we're taking a soft charcoal. And we are laying down a base layer, if you will, of charcoal. And the reason why we're doing this is because what we're going to be doing is we're going to be going back through and we're going to be retrieving a huge majority of our tones, and for textural reasons, we're going to be using our monozuro eraser and our Hoho eraser. But anywhere where there's darker tones, I'm packing that in with charcoal. However, the technique that I'm going to be using here with the monozura eraser is going to be the same for each variation of tone. So just keep that in mind. But here what I'm doing is I'm ironing out the eye, so I'm drying out the outline of the eye. And this is a medium charcoal. One of the reasons why I'm using the medium as opposed to, say, the soft charcoal is because the medium has a little bit more binder in it, and thus it's gonna hold together much better. Which is what I need. When you're working in tight spaces or small spaces, never use a soft charcoal. Always use a medium charcoal or a heart charcoal for that reason. So I've hit that with my smudgers. Kind of that's given us some mid tones to work with, as you can see. So now what I'm doing is I'm just going in, I'm just packing in anywhere where there needs to be that darker tone. Remember with eyes, they can be very tricky. You can overwork an eye. You can overwork an eye very easily. So it's best just to get in and get out. But nine times out of ten, if you just lay out your initial outline of the eye and then hit it with a smudgers and get all those mid tones taken care of, then you can go in with your darkest tones, pack them in real quick. Boom. And all of a sudden, you have a very realistic looking eye. And now, I'm going to do is I'm gonna take my 3/16. Remember, that's the smaller of the two smudgers that we're working with. And I'm just blending. It's very lightly, very lightly. And what this is doing is this is giving us that rounded look that we see in the reference image. And here what I'm doing is I'm just speaking to some of these darker tones that are around the eye, and I'm building up this part of the bird's face. Remember, so much of the three layered method is just that. It's layers. It's this layer, and then this layer, and then blend those layers and then another layer on top of that. And then here what I'm doing is I'm doing the exact same thing that I did in the majority of the head. I'm just packing in a nice soft light base layer where I'm going to be doing a lot of eraser work. Okay, the size is looking pretty good. Pretty good. All right, so now here we are. So basically when it comes to tones, and this is what I spoke to earlier, when you're creating depth, there's what they call save versus retrieve. Basically, when you're creating highlights, you can either do what they call save the white of the paper by leaving areas of the paper completely white, no truckle whatsoever, or you can do what they call retrieve, which is basically what we're doing here. This is a perfect example of retrieving those lighter tones. With our eraser. And because we're using the three layered method, this is but the second step of many as far as trying to convey to the viewer the softness of the plumage of this bird. That's one of the reasons why birds, as opposed to, say, other animals are a little bit harder because the approach that you have to use when you draw them is kind of delicate. But, um, that's one of the reasons why we're making this video. So now what I've done is I've just taken my monozo eraser and I'm just more or less being dicey with it. What I'm doing is I'm smudging the paper, I'm going back and forth, nice tight strokes, and then I'm moving the eraser over so that there's the differences in tones from white to those mid tones. And then I'm taking my eraser and I'm just bringing it all together. Then here, as you can see with those darker tones, we can solidify those boundaries. 5. Value Building the Head : And then what I'm doing here is I need to add a little bit more on the front. We're just gonna lay out that base layer. There we are. And we're just gonna hit it real quick with our eraser. Boo yah. Check it out. Now, we've just brought that plumage forward a little bit, make it look a little bit more like our reference image. And now here, what I'm doing is I'm just taking that size 316 smudgers. I've loaded it up with some charcoal. And I'm just building more or less here. And then here, if there's any dark spots or whatnot, you can just go in with your smudgers and just touch the paper real quick and you'll notice that the charcoal tends to just jump right off the smudger and right onto the paper. Just go slow with this step and take your time. I mean, you can make this image look as realistic as the photo, or you can just, you know, just learn different textures and kind of go at your own pace. That's why I like to do it. Whenever I draw, I kind of throw the notion of, I'm going to get this picture perfect out the window. I like the idea of learning different concepts and learning from my mistakes and implementing what I learn in future drawings. But that's just me. You don't have to do that if you don't want to. Okay, so here what I'm doing is I'm just taking my smudgers and I'm more or less pulling it. I'm pushing it down on the paper and then I'm pulling it as I'm pulling, I'm bringing the smudger up. Okay. And then when it comes to this plumage in this part of the bird, a lot of its feathers are very small and they are laying on top of each other. This technique here is how we're able to convey that. Taking the smudgers, laying it on its side and very, very small movements of the smudgers. Because you can always go back in and add more detail, kind of like how I always say you want to start off with a light tone and then build it up to the dark tone that you want rather than just throwing a dark tone on unless, of course, it's like an eye and you know what this center of the eye is going to be very dark, then you can pack in a lot of charcoal. But when it comes to the detail work on the feathers of this bird, just go into it and approach it knowing that you're just going to build it up. You're just going to layer it up. That's what you're going to do. And then that way, if you do make a slight mistake, it'll be very easy to erase if you need to. Okay. So now what I'm gonna do. I'm just taking my brush. And when it comes to birds and brushwork, birds and brushwork, always hit the paper very lightly. Always remember that. If you need to pack in or solidify something, you can definitely do that. But here, all that texture that I laid down with my eraser work and my smudger work, I don't want to completely get rid of that because if I hit it too hard with the brush, then it's just going to smudge it all together and it's going to be like, Okay, cool. Why do I waste the last 5 minutes building this up just to basically destroy it with a single stroke on my brush. Just be aware of that. When you go to use your brush, just dab it on the tone check paper, make sure it's lighter or the light tone that you want, and then just very lightly. Um But here what I'm doing is I've loaded up my smudgers, and there's this dark line right behind the bird's eye. This line is very important because if you actually look at the reference image, this is what really showcases that giant group of feathers above the Kookaburra eye. That line that I just laid down, that's what gives it that rounded look. So now what I'm doing is I'm loading up my brusher with some soft charcoal. I'm just going in. I'm just gonna put down a nice base layer. I'm gonna extend the back of this Kookaburra head. Then we're gonna go in, and we're going to retrieve the texture with our eraser work. As you can see, just nice tight little strokes. The big thing about this bird and one of the reasons why this drawing might be a little bit of a challenge is because if you actually look, the overall plumage is not the same. The feathers that are on the bird's back and its wings are completely different to the feathers that are on the side of the bird's face, the back of its head, even the feathers that are on the top of its head from right above its beak, to above its I are different. They're different lengths. So you want to be conscious of that. And when it comes to retrieving your tones with your monozura eraser, wherever it dictates, wherever your reference image dictates that you need to have those shorter strokes, make sure that you would adhere to that. So that's just paying attention to detail. And that's something that if you're a little rusty on that at first, don't worry because you will get better with that as time goes by. But here what I'm doing is I'm just building up those darker tones on the very top of the bird's head. And remember how we had that really dark line behind the Kookaburra eye? Well, dark tones on the very top like this. Here's a little trick. You just lift this up and then pull, see how it gets that fluffy look. There we are. So dark textures that are on the top, of the head and then that dark texture that's right behind the eye. What that does is that brings the center of the top of the bird's head closer to you and it makes it look like it's rounded, like it's fluffing out to you and that speaks to the underlying form of this image, which I've always said that underlying form, always keep that in the back of your mind with every stroke because it's one of the hardest concepts to execute on, not comprehend. Everyone understands what form is. It's it's tough when it comes to actually when it comes to practice, it's hard. But if you keep it in mind and you continue to work on it with every drawing, you will get better. 6. Detailing the Head : So now here I'm just softening this up, taking it real quick, real lightly. Then here, I'm using my medium charcoal because I want to have more control than smudger allows for, and I really want to pinpoint those darker tones in the reference image. The medium charcoal because it has more binder in it, it rests on top of that soft charcoal very nicely. As you can see, you can go in with your medium charcoal, you can do this with a hard charcoal as well. It just depends on exactly what kind of aesthetic you are looking for personally with your drawings. But you can go in and you can do all sorts of detail work. Remember how we were hitting those darker tones with the smudgers. You can also go in and you can highlight and you can accentuate those breaks in light tone, mid tone, dark tone with your charcoal pencil. One of the reasons why I like to use the pencil, like I said before is that it just gives me more control. And it really helps accentuate the overall value scale. That's one of the things I always talk about in these tutorials is the value scale, complete white, complete black, and everything in between. This will help give your drawing a lot of depth. So sometimes you might hear that a drawing tends to look flat. Well, that means that there wasn't enough tone from dark to white in the image. And that's one of the reasons why it has that flat look. So keep that in mind. But here what I'm doing is this is just a layer of detail work. This is one of the reasons why the three layered method actually is great, especially if you are maybe just getting into charcoal is because it allows you to do this. You can go over one section of your drawing once, maybe build up mid tones. Then you can go over it again, maybe retrieve some lighter tones with your eraser work, and then you can go over it again with maybe a medium charcoal and iron out some detail work, which when it comes to birds is great because birds will test your ability to create as much detail as possible when compared to maybe say other animals or other textures. So now we got the Ooh hoo power tools. Yes, yes, yes. I love the Yoho hoo. I don't really use it very much, but I wanted to use it in this drawing. I wanted to show you guys just how quickly you can bust out a lot of texture, a lot of tone breaks, and you can retrieve a lot of value and lighter tones out of your image very quickly. But the thing with mono zero eraser that you need to be careful of is that it spins clockwise. So when it comes to hitting your paper, you want to hit your paper because clockwise is from left to right, you want to hit the paper counterclockwise going right to left. Because if you hit it the same way that it spins, what's going to happen is when that eraser hit it touches the paper, it's going to try to run away from you. It's going to jump and then it's literally going to jump, and you're going to have the skip. If you're trying to lay down a nice cohesive line, say maybe to retrieve a line of lighter tone for your value, that's going to be a problem, so just be aware of that. But here what I'm doing is, I'm just going through with my medium charcoal and I'm just hitting any were that needs to have some buildup in detail. Remember how I said this drawing and pretty much any bird is going to significantly test your ability to convey detail. But it's nothing to worry about. Just go slow and take your time. Remember what I always say. You should always have fun when you draw. Moment you're not having fun, take a break, come back to it. But as you can see the texture, you could literally spend hours doing detail work with a bird such as this. I wish that I could give these tutorials the time that they need so that I could really dive in and show you guys exactly how to get something to look pretty much picture perfect. But we only have about an hour. And so there's only so much depth that I can go into with my techniques and with my approaches. But the cool thing about these tutorials is that they do allow me to give you guys the basic principles that you need as an individual artist so that you can go forward and you can implement them in your own ways. You know, who knows? Maybe you'll take one of my eraser techniques, and you'll discover a new technique because of that that works even better than how I used it. You never know, you know, that's one of the cool things about art is that it's all about just discovering new things. But you know what I'm doing is I'm just going through with a Monozur eraser. And this is why I was talking about how I really wanted to go over, you know, the save versus retrieve approach of creating depth with your eraser work is because it's not something that I've ever really spoke to or at least I never gave it its proper definition that it has in the art community. But here, hopefully you see it and you comprehend it, and you can better understand your own approach when it comes to your future drawings. But here what I'm doing is I've already taken care of the mid tones, so now I'm going through and I'm just beefing up the darker tones, as you can see this part of the bird. It's almost has, like, a cheek, and we want to make it look rounded. 7. Base Layering the Plumage : Here, I don't like any of this, so I'm just gonna hit it with my Pencil click eraser real quick. And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to redraw the back of the Kookaburra and the top of its wing here. Let's see. I don't really like that. So I'm gonna gonna erase that with a monozur eraser. I don't like any of that, actually. So I'm just gonna continue to erase it. But now I'm gonna take my graphite pencil. I'm just gonna redraw this roll light. And this is giving me that basic framework for where I need to lay down my charcoal. So you're on my 316 smudger. I know that I have a lighter tone. So I'm just gonna go in and hit it real quick. Anywhere where it's dark and needs it. Here's kind of a cool trick. What I'm doing is I'm taking my smudger. I'm laying it on its side. I'm pressing down, lifting up, coming over, and then pressing down again. And that's giving me that look that the feathers have immediately above the back of the Ccabras back on the top of its wing. So now here I'm just gonna take my brush, slightly blend all this. And then I'm going to do some serious power tool retrieving of highlights. I'm going to do this here so that you can see, and that's really all it takes. Just hit it and then move, hit it, and then move. The thing with the huhu erasers, because it's a power tool and it's powered by batteries, just be careful because it can actually chew right through your paper if you let it, so just keep that in mind. I'm just gonna build this up here. Here we go. So what I'm doing is I'm taking those darker blotches, and I'm just putting them right next to the light blotches that I just laid down that I just retrieved with my Hoho eraser. Then anywhere where it needs to be softened up. I'm just gonna hit that real quick with my brush. There we are. As you can see, the cool thing about this technique is you can go back in and you can re retrieve as many tones as you need to them. Just be careful that you don't overwork the paper. And here, what I'm doing is I'm just softening up all that charcoal that we lay down with our smudger. This is giving us that really nice fluffy, soft texture that is actually kind of hard to convey with birds. It's something that takes a little bit of practice, but it's nothing, nothing that you can't figure out. So I laid down that base layer with my charcoal, that light tone, and then I retrieved my lighter tones with my eraser. And now I'm just highlighting it with my medium charcoal. Alrighty. So now the wings in the back of the Kookaburra. So what I'm doing is I'm just loading up my brush and I'm sating it real quick, real light. A couple of passes, dark here, then dark here. Dark here. But what I'm doing here is I'm making sure that there's a nice break between the darkest tones. The reason why I'm making sure there's that nice break is because when I go in and I really try to nail the detail of the plumage on the back and the top of the Kookaburra wing, that lighter tone is going to work out for us in the wake of our eraser work. What I'm doing is, I'm just going to make sure my monozero eraser tip is clean. Just going to go back through and I'm going to lighten up some of these lighter tones. Again, this is what they call retrieving. Now, if I would have saved those lighter tones, I wouldn't have laid down any charcoal onto the paper at all. I would have more or less worked around the white space, the complete white space. But all we're doing is I'm just taking that mono zero and I'm just pulling it straight, moving it over, and then pulling it straight again, going up and down, pulling it straight again. K you know, there's no exact science to it. It's just however your hand it feels however it wants to move, just trust it and let it do what it wants to do. And nine times out of ten, it'll give you the look and the texture that you want. Here, I'm just taking my Pentoclick eraser and I'm just cleaning this up a little bit. There we go. Now what we're doing is I've loaded up my three 16th smudgers, and I'm just going in and I'm just darkening up any dark tones to really accentuate the value of the top of the wing and the back. And this is what really will make those feathers kind of pop and really show the fact that they're laying on top of each other. Just be careful that you don't smudge out all of your eraser work. I'm taking my smudgers. I'm putting it on the paper, and then I'm lifting up, and then I'm pressing it and kind of rolling it, then lifting it up, moving it over, pressing it, kind of rolling it. Just very subtle. When it comes to this step of this specific drawing, just be subtle. I'm going in solidifying all this. And then here. I'm just gonna kind of blend this. This is gonna give us that nice gradation between our tones. 8. Final Details & Thoughts : Then here. I'm just going to continue to do what I've done for the top of the wing under the eye, and then the top of the Kookaburra back. Now here what I'm doing is I'm just taking a medium charcoal, doing some detail work. And then here I'm going to put a nice define line on the cooker bird's back and over the top of the wing, and what this is doing is this is pushing the head back and bringing the back and the top of the bird's wing forward. This is kind of more or less kind of elongating the image for us. Then I'm just taking my brush, softening up any darker tones that I'm running the brush along the bottom of that define line to give us a nice blend. Then here. I'm going to beef up the bird's back. Looks like it goes, a little bit more straighter. There we are. Let's go ahead and hit it with the eraser. That'll give us a nice tone. There we are. Yeah, see that? So that's really nice. So now it looks like the wing and the back are a little bit separate. You know, you really have a nice break, and because we've lined it out with that medium charcoal, there's a nice separation for the eye to pick up when your viewers looking at your image. If I'm just going through anywhere that needs to be lightened up, I just hit it with the eraser, retrieve that lighter tone, and then move forward. But yeah, this is one of those steps kind of like the head of Kookaburra. You can spend as much time as you want, really refining the image, whether you're doing that with your erasers, your smudgers or your hard and medium charcoals. It's really up to you how far you want to take your image. But, I mean, the big thing with this bird is I just wanted to show you guys the basic principles of how I would approach it. When it comes to drawing, there is by no means any one absolute way to accomplish textures and specific, um, looks. I mean, there are ways that might be a little bit better than others, but I've always liked to think that just because there's one way to do it, that doesn't mean that that's the only way. There could be lots of different ways to maybe streamline a process or, you know, refine it to make it even better than it was before. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why I developed the three layer method when it comes to artists that want to dabble or maybe who are looking to go professional in the charcoal medium as a whole, is I wanted to develop something that was simple and allowed you to make a lot of art very quickly. A lot of quality art very quickly. I feel like there's definitely a fine balance between going steady at something while at the same time not having to sacrifice on the quality of your work to accomplish it. So that is pretty much it for this one. I had a lot of fun drawing the Cukobra. It's the first bird that I've done in a while, but I hope you guys learned something from it, and I hope you had fun. I know I did. There you are.