{"id":12365,"date":"2024-07-26T10:28:54","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T14:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/?p=12365"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:36:12","slug":"how-to-sketch-a-horse-with-charcoal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/how-to-sketch-a-horse-with-charcoal","title":{"rendered":"How to Sketch a Horse with Charcoal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"insertbackground\">\n<div class=\"removep\">\n<div class=\"videoflexwrapper\">\n<div class=\"videotop\">\n <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YQVdP9mITn0?si=-me7V3OD1TLMnax4\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"wrapperpage\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\/newsletter-signup\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"buttonundervideo\">FREE COURSE VIDEOS<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"buttonundervideoorangetabletcontainer\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"buttonundervideoorangetablet\">BECOME A MEMBER<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"orangecontainermobile\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"buttonundervideoorange\">BECOME A MEMBER<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sidebartop\">\n<div class=\"vertalign\">\n<div class=\"logoimage\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/logosmall75.png\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"sidebarcarddescriptiondark\"><span>JOIN THE VIRTUAL INSTRUCTOR<\/span><br \/>\n    Get ALL of our courses, ebooks, live lessons, critiques, lesson plans and more today.<\/div>\n<div class=\"sidebarbuttonholder\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"sidebuttonsmem\">START FREE TRIAL<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<hr style=\"background-color:#ffffff;margin-top:1.5em;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\/newsletter-signup\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"sidebuttons\">FREE COURSE VIDEOS<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"contentfix\">\n<h2>Horse Drawing with Charcoal<\/h2>\n<p>In this <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/charcoal-drawing-tutorials.html\">charcoal drawing lesson<\/a>, we&#8217;ll draw a horse with charcoal in about an hour. Here&#8217;s a look at the finished drawing&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal.jpg\" alt=\"Horse Drawing with Charcoal\" width=\"800\" height=\"1119\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12357\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal-732x1024.jpg 732w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal-768x1074.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/> <\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll use a photo reference to complete the drawing. Here&#8217;s a look at the photo reference&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-reference.jpg\" alt=\"Horse photo reference\" width=\"800\" height=\"1121\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12358\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-reference.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-reference-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-reference-731x1024.jpg 731w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-reference-768x1076.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Charcoal Materials<\/h2>\n<p>For this drawing, we&#8217;ll be working with vine or willow charcoal which is very soft and brittle but easily blended and removed from the surface. We&#8217;ll also be using compressed charcoal in the form of a charcoal pencil. We&#8217;ll also be using a <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/do-you-really-need-blending-stumps\">blending stump<\/a>. You can use a blending stump or a blending tortillon. We&#8217;ll be working with a couple of erasers, a kneaded eraser and also a vinyl eraser for more precision erasing.<\/p>\n<h2>Sketching the Contours of the Horse<\/h2>\n<p>We&#8217;ll begin making marks with a small stick on vine charcoal. I&#8217;m just looking at the contour lines and trying to find shapes as well. I&#8217;m making comparisons between <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/positive-and-negative-space.html\">the negative space<\/a> around the horse and the negative space on my drawing paper to find the shapes. I&#8217;ll draw a line across the brow line that&#8217;ll help me understand where the tops of the eyes are located. Once I have these initial marks in place, I can use them to make comparisons as I add the remainder of the marks for the rest of the head of the horse, the neck and the lower portion of the body.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-drawing-sketch-out-contours.jpg\" alt=\"Sketching the contours of the horse\" width=\"800\" height=\"489\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12364\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-drawing-sketch-out-contours.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-drawing-sketch-out-contours-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/horse-drawing-sketch-out-contours-768x469.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Shading the Horse<\/h2>\n<p>Now that we have a rough contour line drawing in place, we&#8217;re going to shift our gears a little bit and begin thinking about value. Value is the darkness or lightness of a color. We need to have a full range of value in this piece, meaning we need to have the darkest darks and the lightest lights and the full range of grays in between. Sticking with the vine charcoal, I&#8217;m going to start planning out some of the areas where I see shapes of darker value. I&#8217;m also going to go ahead and give this drawing a quick little smudge here. This will pull some of the soft vine charcoal into some of the open spaces and provide us with a nice gray base in which to manipulate the values.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/shading-the-horse-drawing.jpg\" alt=\"Shading the horse with charcoal\" width=\"800\" height=\"487\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/shading-the-horse-drawing.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/shading-the-horse-drawing-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/shading-the-horse-drawing-768x468.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Don&#8217;t worry that your drawing is getting messed up at this point. I know it&#8217;s really easy to do, especially if you&#8217;re accustomed to drawing with pen and ink or graphite. But charcoal is a different medium entirely. We can move the charcoal around on the surface and erase relatively easily.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"promoinsert\">\n<div class=\"promoimage\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"promotext\"><span>The Charcoal Drawing Course<\/span><br \/>\n    In this course, we explore the traditional drawing medium of charcoal. Learn the foundational principles of drawing while creating a variety of drawings using various forms of charcoal on different surfaces.<br \/>\n     <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\/the-charcoal-drawing-course\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"contentbutton\">VIEW COURSE<\/div>\n<p>     <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Our light source is originating from the left side. This means that most of our highlights are going to exist on the left side of the horse and most of our shadows are going to exist on the right side of the horse. After a bit of erasing, now we&#8217;re ready to start making things a little bit more controlled. I&#8217;m going to use my blending stump for this. Again, we want to think about the blending stump as a mark-making tool. Just like the eraser, we can use it somewhat like a brush and pull the vine charcoal into areas where we need a slightly darker value. We can also use the blending stump to smooth transitions of value, meaning that we can create gradations from dark to light.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/blending-charcoal-horse-drawing.jpg\" alt=\"Blending charcoal on the horse with a blending stump\" width=\"800\" height=\"494\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12362\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/blending-charcoal-horse-drawing.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/blending-charcoal-horse-drawing-300x185.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/blending-charcoal-horse-drawing-768x474.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the blending stump, I&#8217;m going to go ahead and pull out a few lines for some of the hair at the top. We&#8217;ll find this later in the process. And we&#8217;re going to go ahead and go down into the face or the head of the horse and start pulling some of those dark to medium values around.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I&#8217;m continually going back and forth with my eyes between the photo reference and the drawing surface, continually making comparisons between the shapes that I see and the shapes that I am including in the drawing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve switched over to a more precise eraser. This is a <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/best-erasers-for-drawing\">vinyl eraser<\/a>, so it&#8217;s a tougher eraser than the kneaded eraser. It does leave some shavings on the surface, but you can blow these away or brush them away with a drafting brush.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/refining-details-horse-drawing.jpg\" alt=\"Refining details on the horse with an eraser\" width=\"800\" height=\"489\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12361\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/refining-details-horse-drawing.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/refining-details-horse-drawing-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/refining-details-horse-drawing-768x469.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now we&#8217;ve got a faint version of our horse in place with some of the values. We&#8217;re going to go ahead and continue the process of darkening the values. I&#8217;m using a charcoal pencil here, but you&#8217;ll see I quickly switch back to the vine charcoal since I&#8217;m not quite ready to commit to some of the areas of darker value.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I like to think of working with charcoal somewhat like working with a ball of clay. If you&#8217;re trying to make something out of clay, you start with a ball of clay and you have to continue to move it around until you get your sculpture in place. Well, the same thing&#8217;s true with charcoal. We start with a very loose interpretation of the subject, and then we gradually refine the drawing using our tools, so the charcoal of course, the blending stump, and also the erasers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There is a slight reflected highlight on the right side of the jaw, so I&#8217;ve used the kneaded eraser to remove that. <\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;ve switched over to the compressed charcoal pencil. We&#8217;re going to get a little bit more defined with some of our details and get quite a bit darker with our darkest values. This will expand the contrast within the scene and create a more full, more natural range of value.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/adding-compressed-charcoal-horse-drawing.jpg\" alt=\"Drawing the details on the head of the horse\" width=\"800\" height=\"486\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/adding-compressed-charcoal-horse-drawing.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/adding-compressed-charcoal-horse-drawing-300x182.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/adding-compressed-charcoal-horse-drawing-768x467.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind that the compressed charcoal pencil is more difficult to erase compared to the vine charcoal so the marks that you make at this stage are going to be more permanent. You can still blend and smooth transitions of value using the blending stump with compressed charcoal, but erasing is definitely more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll go ahead and start from the top and work our way to the bottom after we&#8217;ve addressed the eye. After adding some of those darker values with the compressed charcoal, I&#8217;m using a blending tool to smooth those transitions. We&#8217;ll also add some lines for the wispy hair at the top.<\/p>\n<div class=\"promoinsert\">\n<div class=\"promoimagell\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"promotext\"><span>Figure Drawing with Charcoal<\/span><br \/>\n    Learn how to draw a figure with charcoal. This lesson series includes 6 one-hour lessons in real-time.<br \/>\n     <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\/figure-drawing-with-charcoal\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"contentbutton\">VIEW LESSONS<\/div>\n<p>     <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Developing Details on the Horse<\/h2>\n<p>Our details are beginning to emerge. We&#8217;ll continue switching back and forth between the different forms of charcoal, along with the erasers, to refine the details. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/finishing-the-drawing-horse.jpg\" alt=\"Finishing the drawing of a horse\" width=\"800\" height=\"486\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/finishing-the-drawing-horse.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/finishing-the-drawing-horse-300x182.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/finishing-the-drawing-horse-768x467.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Continue working back and forth with your eyes to find small details and refine them in your drawing. At this point, things slow down a bit. Take your time and make changed to your drawing as necessary.<\/p>\n<div class=\"promoinsert\">\n<div class=\"promoimagedays\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"promotext\"><span>The Secrets to Drawing<\/span><br \/>\n    The Secrets to Drawing is a comprehensive learning experience designed to guide absolute beginners and intermediate artists through the core foundations of drawing.<br \/>\n     <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/members\/the-secrets-to-drawing\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"contentbutton\">VIEW COURSE<\/div>\n<p>     <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Completing the Drawing of a Horse<\/h2>\n<p>Determining when you&#8217;re <a href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/how-to-know-when-an-artwork-is-finished\">finished with the drawing<\/a> is up to you. The beauty of charcoal is that there are several stages that you can call the drawing &#8220;complete&#8221;. Decide when you have added enough details and refinement to call your drawing complete. At this point, I have spent around one hour on the drawing, and while I could continue, I decide that my sketch is complete.   <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal.jpg\" alt=\"Horse Drawing with Charcoal\" width=\"800\" height=\"1119\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12357\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal.jpg 800w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal-732x1024.jpg 732w, https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Horse-Drawing-Charcoal-768x1074.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Charcoal Drawing of a Horse &#8211; Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Charcoal has a reputation of being messy and difficult to control. However, charcoal is quite forgiving and allows the artist to make changes throughout the drawing process. Pay attention to the shapes of value instead of lines. Take your time and allow the drawing to go through the necessary stages to completion. Don&#8217;t get frustrated and just keep making adjustments until you are happy with the results.<\/p>\n<div class=\"promoinsert\">\n<div class=\"promoimagenews\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"promotext\"><span>Like This Lesson?<\/span><br \/>If so, join over 36,000 others that receive our newsletter with new drawing and painting lessons. 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START FREE TRIAL FREE COURSE VIDEOS Horse Drawing with Charcoal In this charcoal drawing lesson, we&#8217;ll draw a horse with charcoal in about an hour. Here&#8217;s a look [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drawing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 4.9.9 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to draw a horse with charcoal in this one hour sketching exercise. Use various forms of charcoal and erasers on white paper to complete the drawing.\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"max-image-preview:large\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt Fussell\"\/>\n\t<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thevirtualinstructor.com\/blog\/how-to-sketch-a-horse-with-charcoal\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"generator\" content=\"All in One SEO (AIOSEO) 4.9.9\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TheVirtualInstructor Blog |\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Sketch a Horse with Charcoal\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn how to draw a horse with charcoal in this one hour sketching exercise. 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