A personal story

Charcoal in my hands

There’s a thin veil of black dust over the table, my hands are constantly grey around the edges. I’m fully in the sketch phase. No large canvases, no layered colour, but paper, line, and energy that I sometimes let flow freely and sometimes channel with sharp focus. It feels like returning to a basic form of safety: just me, the sheet of paper, and a small piece of charcoal that weighs almost nothing and yet can touch everything. I’m in love with it.

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Soft as powder dust and cracklingly hard

For me, charcoal is an incredibly versatile material. It can be smudged, layered, brought back in again. A line is allowed to fail, because with a single wipe it becomes a shadow. That creates space to search instead of having to know right away. I can erase into it, I can work with my hands, my fingers. It can be put down brutally hard, and just as easily as soft as powder dust.

When I sketch with charcoal, I’m not just drawing forms, I’m feeling my way. Sometimes at full speed. I search for where the image wants to be. A shoulder line that can be a bit firmer, a small house that needs to stand more solidly in the landscape, a silhouette that almost dissolves into the background. One line is a gentle sweep, another is a clear decision.

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Sketching from feeling

I rarely start with a fixed plan. Often it’s a feeling that comes first: comfort, embrace, a kind of inner shelter. From that feeling I put down the first lines. I begin with clear outlines, a direction I set, often from a female figure. Sometimes it’s a soft, swaying movement, sometimes a short, almost jolting stroke. Both belong there, because in my work softness always sits next to something raw.

In charcoal I can feel that duality immediately. A light touch on the paper is almost a breeze, a firm pressure becomes instantly dark, intense. A rhythm emerges, a kind of pulse, and I find myself moving along with it in my process.

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Light and dark as a search

What keeps bringing me back to charcoal is the direct dialogue between light and dark. There is no colour to hide behind. A surface either carries light, or it carries shadow. Everything I want to explore arises in between those two.

I often work in layers. First soft, hazy, as if the image doesn’t quite dare to exist yet. Then I start to deepen certain parts, repeat lines, fill in areas. After that comes an important moment: with a kneaded eraser or a cloth I pull the light back in. It feels as if I’m literally drawing the light out of the darkness. The drawing suddenly breathes differently, as if the paper is remembering itself.

In those moments I see the themes return that keep appearing in my paintings as well: strength and vulnerability, inside and outside, protection and becoming visible. Only now it is bare and pure: charcoal, paper, hand.

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Different lines, different energy

No line is neutral. A thin, trembling line carries a different energy than a broad, smudged stroke. That’s why I consciously work with different kinds of charcoal: harder sticks for sharp edges, softer pieces for velvety shadows, and sometimes even a charcoal block to lay down large areas in a single gesture.

Through that variation, an inner dynamic emerges in the sketch. A strong, angular house in a field of soft, smudged tones. A figure that almost dissolves into the white of the paper, while a single dark line still marks its presence. In this way, I keep searching for that tipping point where the image starts to speak, but doesn’t have to be “finished” yet.

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The sketch phase as a safe time

In recent weeks I’ve noticed how necessary this sketch phase is. It’s an in-between time in which nothing has to shine on the wall yet, nothing has a title, nothing has to prove itself already. Precisely because of that, I dare more. I try different framings, let figures partially disappear out of view, and test how far I can push the darkness without it becoming suffocating.

Charcoal helps me stay close to my own energy and flow. It is raw and soft at the same time. It forgives, and it reveals. And while I’m sketching, images slowly begin to appear that may one day grow into paintings, but for now are allowed to be just this: traces of a search for safety, comfort, and embrace in black, grey, and white.

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Orginals on paper

Would you like to see this phase as well, the fragile originals on paper alongside the works in oil and mixed media? You’re welcome in my studio to wander between the sketches and canvases, and to experience the rhythm of charcoal on paper for yourself.

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