Charcoal
The quickest way to make a mark

Charcoal is one of the first tools humans used to make artwork, appearing in cave paintings dating back 28,000 years. Artists have refined the medium from burnt wood to finely-ground charcoal bound with wax or gum into sticks, crayons, and pencils. During the Renaissance, charcoal was often used to create gestural sketches to prepare for a painting, but charcoal’s range of expression makes it a beautiful medium for finished work, from the gentle ochre used in Da Vinci’s Study of a Woman’s Hands to the intense black of Redon’s spiders.