Drawing with charcoal: a way of thinking

I like drawing with charcoal. It's primitive, cheap, messy and a whole lot of fun. It's often said that charcoal is an expressive medium, but isn't that true of every other medium? 

Charcoal is primitive. There's some small part of me that relishes making art with something as simple as burnt sticks. Painting often has a lot of other equipment and supplies that go along with it. Even when I try to paint with minimal equipment and colours I still feel a degree of clutter involved. But charcoal doesn't have that. It's just a couple of pieces of charcoal, a kneadable eraser, and some fixative spray if you want to preserve the work. And if I want to work outside then it's easy to carry everything I need. 

Charcoal is cheap. No fancy brushes. No expensive paints with premium pigments. No mediums. And none of the other things that one might be tempted to buy when getting into painting. Sure, there's different types of charcoal, erasers, blending stumps, and fixatives. But you really don't need a large variety of those items. And another area where charcoal is cheaper are the surfaces. A good quality sheet of paper is cheaper than any canvas or panel of equivalent size. 

Charcoal is messy. Some people see this as a problem. I see it as a feature. The ease with which charcoal can be smudged and smeared is what allows for creative mark-making. Bold lines through to smooth blends and gradients are all possible with just a little practise. It allows for a lot of freedom in creating an image. I also like to see a bit of mess on my hands when I'm finished working. 

Charcoal is fun. It's a medium which stands on its own, in a field somewhere between the camps of painting and drawing. Using it feels like I'm doing both in the same piece. Here are two recent examples from my sketchbook.

Sketchbook page (28 December 2025)

Sketchbook page (29 December 2025)

There is always something to learn. The clouds in the first picture could have been lighter in value. And in the second picture, the mountains on the right could have had more variety in form, and the lake could have been more convincing with some ripples closer to the viewer. Beyond these examples, there are always new ways to try things, different techniques, different workflows and a variety of styles. The simplicity of the medium is its greatest strength. Equipment doesn't get in the way of doing the work.

Christmas cold war

I'm a Grinch. There is no denying it. There are many reasons why I don't like the Christmas holidays, but the main one is the largess. I don't like the degree to which many people spend on the holiday. 

There are the decorations and the lights on houses. They look beautiful but are so extensive that they could probably be seen by any Jetstar flight passing overhead. There is a lot of time and effort that's spent in setting up displays. Then they have to be pulled down, dismantled and put away. Although, some neighbours view that as optional until Easter. 

There are the expensive gifts. Our wish to be generous can go too far. It can leave us struggling to pay for our own needs. It can also encourage a materialist mindset, and perpetuate the hardship. 

Then there is the food. Oh my goodness the food. All of the tasty treats for the special occasion, prepared with care and love over many hours. And there are the bags full of sweets, chocolates and crisps. The fundamental purpose of food is lost during these times. 

There is simply too much. But why? 

Are we motivated by kindness, love and a desire to be generous? Or are these heartfelt urges twisted up by a subconscious concern for what everyone else is doing? Are we loving, or are we trying to keep up with the world around us? 

I think that it can be difficult to keep worldliness out of the holidays. And if we try to, we are likely to worry about what other people think. Thus we are caught in the cycle. Maybe it's just a first world problem. 

Start things and see where they go

Have you ever made a plan? Have you ever revised that plan? And have you ever kept revising the plan without putting it into action? I know that I have. Often. 

It's a stubborn habit that pervades our lives. Lots of good ideas that never amount to anything, all because we want the plan to be perfect. We want some sort of guarantee that a plan will succeed before we do anything about it. There's a problem with this mindset - nothing ever gets done. 

Sometimes it's the big things in life. And that's when the hesitation is understandable. But a start needs to be made. Plans are wonderful and they are necessary. A plan allows us to make reasonable preparations, allocate resources, time and energy. With a good plan we know what we're in for. But we still need to start, otherwise even the best plan in the world is for nothing. Plan, start, and then make adjustments when under way. 

It's a good strategy for both big and small issues. It's also good for things that are almost irrelevant, such as our hobbies. 

The page below is from my sketchbook. I had the date confused when I wrote it in the top left corner, so don't get too excited - I haven't built a time machine. 

From my sketchbook.

When I sat down to draw this morning, I merely wanted to make some marks, so I practised some hatching and patterns. After that I drew two scribble doodles. That's when I throw down some random lines, try to imagine something in the chaos, and then make something out of it. Finally, I picked up a brush pen and repeated the exercise. From a couple of lines, I could imagine a sail so that's what I drew. From there I proceeded to draw a ship around the sail. Then came the ocean, the sky, and finally the island. I like the end result. And it all began with a minimal plan - start with something random and see where it goes. 

The consequences of failure in a sketchbook are minimal. Although it doesn't feel that way to many aspiring artists. But getting started with what we already have works in a lot of situations. So, the next time you are paralyzed in the midst of planning something, try something different - try starting things and see where they go.

Review: God Emperor of Dune

The God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert is the fourth novel in the Dune series. It follows on from Children of Dune, in which Paul Atreides' son Leto II, takes up the responsibility of the Golden Path. A prescient vision of the future, in which great sacrifices and decisions must be made over the span of thousands of years so that humanity can be saved from extinction. This novel reveals the latter period of Leto II's reign as the tyrannical God Emperor, whose long life is made possible because of his binding with the sand trout at the end of the preceding book. 

I made two attempts to read this novel. The first was nearly a year ago, at which time I only read about a third of the story. I honestly found it boring and tedious to read. But a few weeks ago I decided to continue from where I left off. This time I found the story easier to engage with. By the time I had read approximately half of the book I was hooked. 

The further into the story I went, the more I appreciated the various journal entries between chapters, and the philosophical insights from Leto II during his many conversations. The insights were crafted by Frank Herbert decades ago, but they seem relevant for today. For a work of fiction it sometimes seems prophetic. 

One of my favourite quotes is, "What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking - there's the real danger." 

It's easy to extrude something pithy sounding from that quote and project it onto the technological struggles of today. With a little imagination I can see how our careless and reflexive use of the internet might seem related. As useful as the internet can be, it's when we use it without thought, intent or focus that we run into problems. 

Eventually this novel became a real page-turner, but it took a long time getting there. It is not as accessible as the first two books in the series. Instead it feels a little more challenging, similar to Children of Dune. But if you made it through the preceding books in the series and you want to see how things continue, then I would recommend reading God Emperor of Dune. Just be patient with it. 

Final score: 3.5 / 5

Painting for breakfast

There was no alarm to wake me up this morning. Just the way I like it. No place to go. No things to do. A genuine day off. Nice! 

I overslept by about an hour. But I stayed up late last night reading. I'm currently reading God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert. The further I get into the novel, the more enthralling it becomes. 

Back to this morning. I take a few minutes to stare at the ceiling while I wake up. Then like a cat I poke my head between the blinds. Yep, a beautiful morning outside, which will heat up soon. After my morning necessaries, getting dressed, and a glass of water, I decided to postpone the morning coffee. I decided to paint first. 

It started with a landscape concept sketch that I made a few days ago. The painting itself started the day after. Working in short bursts of about 15 to 30 minutes, I have been slowly building the image over a few days. This seems to be my usual way of working with acrylic paints. Completely different to how I make oil paintings, which I typically make in one sitting which lasts no more than two hours. 

My fragmented acrylic painting process suits me well. When working with acrylics I tend to think about an image in stages, almost like it's a puzzle. After the composition is established, I tend to work from background to foreground, and I often layer the paint in a way that lets a little of the colours underneath show through. For example, if there is a field of grass. I will often paint the dirt first, then the average green colour for the area, then perhaps some highlights on top. All while letting a little bit of that dirt show through.

Here are some photos demonstrating the process. These are not from the painting that I have been working on. They are of a quick demo completed in a sketchbook.

First layer - earth and sky. 

Second layer - grass (single colour).

Final layer - grass (highlights).

While this is a mere fragment of how I work with acrylics demonstrated simply, it represents my method. If anyone is interested in the colours used they are: 

• Earth = burnt sienna + ultramarine blue. 
• Sky = titanium white + cobalt blue. 
• Grass = cadmium yellow + cobalt blue. 
• Grass highlights = Grass mix above + more cadmium yellow.

Starting the day by doing something like this can almost feel like a luxury in our busy lives. Many of us have developed the habit of reaching for our smartphones immediately upon waking. Once the scrolling, checking, and notifications start capturing out attention it can be difficult regain any sense of deep peace and mindfulness. But if you find simple activities which keep you away from the online world, and build them into brief morning habits, then I'm sure you will agree that your day gets off to a better start.