In this course, I dug out as many charcoal products I could find. In this first image, I created samplers using Derwent charcoal sticks, and Mont Marte Charcoal pencils in Sanguine, Sepia and Dark. I spread the initial marks around with water and then came back in on top with the same pencils to explore the layering. I chose to use lines, dots and squiggles as my marks.

In this second sampler, I used Derwent tinted charcoal as the base and then added Derwent tinted charcoal pencils on top. I used the same colours if I could find them for the mark making. I also played around with composition in the cruciform, diagonals, and x forms.

The next sample is using the Derwent tinted charcoal and the matching pencils in a minimalistic way. I applied the base colours with my 3/8" dagger brush so I had less control and then added the mark making on top so there are only two layers.

This last sample is a larger version in a horizontal format for the urban sample. Here I went darker and thicker with the pigment by using he Derwent XL charcoal blocks in ochre and the darkest one from the set. After moving things around a bit with the water, I used the matching Derwent pencils to add the dots and lines. This is totally different that what I would normally do.