Painting... I've tried some oil painting, but I've been longing to get the Bob Ross complete painting set
D); has all the particular brushes he uses, and the right paint colors. He was pretty big back in the 90s; I loved his show, but it finally stopped airing reruns a few years ago. I taped many of his shows, so when I finally get that set I'm gonna start with oils.
Yes, I prefer charcoal... Charcoal is super-softer than pencil, but since it's so soft, if you use the wrong kind of paper (i.e. what I used: sketch paper) it'll look very gritty. Even after you go over it with tortillons it'll still have that rough quality. There are special pencils with different grades that have sort of the same ability as charcoal, only it has a lighter tone and you tend to make more realistic-looking drawings than charcoal. I've been trying to draw the four pevensies all together with those pencils (my sister lent them to me), but it just hasn't been working out. I'd gotten very far with Lucy's and Edmund's faces, but I finally gave up. Sometime I'll start over and just stick to charcoal.
But it also depends on what sort of paper to use. My sister's looked at all kinds of paper types and she's found bristol paper to be the softest. Soft = smooth drawings that look more realistic, especially when you go over it with tortillons afterward. Charcoal looks the smoothest on bristol (which is why I'm gonna use it from now on). My sister uses pencils mostly and I use charcoal mostly...
You seem really interested in drawing! Have you made any sketches I can see?
