How to draw with charcoal TUTORIAL - Charcoal on canson watercolor paper

The paper I used in this sketch is Canson Watercolor paper. I wanted to get the Canson sketch paper, but anyways... The paper is textured from one side while the other side being slightly smooth. I sketched on the smoother side of the paper.
The materials I used are Derwent charcoal pencils = [Dark and medium] 
I used a charcoal powder technique to lay in the basic value before doing any sketching. For this I took some charcoal vines and put them into this little ball/bag of cloth. I tied a knot on top of it and hammered it so the charcoal vines would break into powder. 
Once you have done this... you can use it by hitting gently on the paper. It will start to leave these amazing values with soft edges. [Later I used a kneaded eraser to create the highlights] I also used Tortillon(s). I basically used them to sketch at first because I didn't want to use the pencils at the very beginning as I could have made a mistake [as it's very difficult to erase charcoal pencil]

You can see the charcoal powder marks that I laid first for establishing the basic values[or the general value] You can also notice that I have only used charcoal pencil in the eyes but everything else is very much drawn by tortillon. 

                                                                 

                                                        HOW TO DRAW?

Well, this is a question I get all the time. The answer is...Simplify things. How to do that? It's easy.

What we usually do when we draw is try to copy everything...all those little details. I used to do that

all the time. But I did it only to prove to myself that I can do it and the day I realized that I was able to draw "realistic" was the day I gave it up. To be honest drawing details isn't fun for me at all.

Now I simplify things...that is add or deduct the shapes I see. Don't do line drawings. Just sketch the shadows...the mid tones...and the highlights. Squint down to your subject and the details will be simplified. Divide the subject in three parts: Shadows, mid tones and highlights. This is the best advice I can give at the moment. If you are drawing from photos...make sure that the photograph has enough value range[shadows and highlights] Some people give me flat images and ask me to draw them...and when I do, they say it doesn't look realistic enough (they're correct-but why?). I never say this but here is the truth...a bad photo makes a bad drawing or a painting. There should be enough shadows, mid-tones and high lights because all we are doing is creating an illusion of form. We draw and paint on a flat surface but we use the shadows to create an illusion of a 3D form.   

This is the completed version of the sketch. I used the charcoal vine/charcoal brick for the background. I like lines...even though I don't like doing line drawing. But in the end, I always put a lot of lines in order to create a spontaneous effect. I personally prefer incomplete work as it looks more interesting.