One of the oldest drawing mediums is charcoal. Nowadays charcoal pencils are made from vine and willow twigs and are available in three forms: stick, compressed and pencil form. The texture of compressed and pencil charcoal differs and depends on the blend of charcoal, fillers and clay involved in their manufacture. The compressed charcoal is nothing but powdered charcoal that are stuck together with binding agents. The charcoal pencils has a rod of compressed charcoal, while drawing you will come across that charcoal smudges very easily and for that reason it should be preserved with a fixative spray. The stick charcoal are nothing but charred sticks and hence very fragile.
The charcoal pencils are sold in sets as well as individually mostly in cedar casings. The charcoal pencils are rated for blackness (B) and hardness (H) or as “soft”,”medium”, and “hard“. Charcoal pencils are available in H, HB, B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B and 6B. Some special charcoal pencils are also available the 4B charcoal pencils are sold as carbon sketch pencil and the white charcoal pencils to which blackness rating is not applied. The charcoal pencils have noticeably different feel as they produce a rich dark line.