Charcoal Still Life

Here is a charcoal still life that I am working on for one of my classes. I just happened upon this scene and hardly altered a thing. I started this drawing using a wipe out technique. I covered the entire canvas using vine charcoal to create one gray tone. I pulled out the light areas with a chamois and added the dark areas with compressed charcoal.

I find this technique very useful. It helps me to stay loose and to section my drawing into large masses of light and dark. I intend to keep working this image by varying my marks and refining some of the detail.