Coates Willow Charcoal Review

There are different kinds of charcoal out there, but I will review Coates Willow Charcoal today. It comes in different stick sizes, I use 3-12 mm short sticks, because it’s what my local art store carries. I prefer to buy it in person, because this charcoal is rather soft and damages easily in shipping. It’s not as noticeable with thick sticks, but thin ones break easily.

As I mentioned before, this is probably the softest charcoal ever created. It glides on the paper smoothly, and then erases really easily. It can be spread around with a stump or a finger. I usually use seasoned paper towel, my fingers, and erasers like Tombow Mono or Faber Castel Kneaded Eraser. This willow charcoal can be completely erased from the page. It’s a gift and a curse, because it’s really easy to destroy a drawing in one careless swipe of a paper towel or a sleeve.

Coates Willow Charcoal goes on paper very dark if applied with pressure, but it can make faint and delicate lines too. That’s where sticks of different thickness come in. The longer and thinner the stick, the less pressure is applied. I prefer thicker sticks, because they don’t break as easily if I accidentally press too much.

Willow Charcoal Photo Gallery

Coates Willow Charcoal Paper Swatch

Here is Coates Willow Charcoal in action. I used thick and thin sticks to make fine lines and larger marks on rough newsprint paper. Thin sticks work best for fine details, but thicker sticks cover a large area with ease. Thin lines can be made with thicker sticks, too. Therefore, if you’re getting just one, get the thicker ones. The first charcoal piece in this picture is the thickest, but I have used it quite a bit, so it became both much shorter and thinner. The middle piece, used to be a long thin stick, but I dropped it and ended up with a bunch of short ones. Third is the medium thickness stick, and it also can be used to cover a large area quickly.

Here, I tried to erase willow charcoal with a seasoned paper towel. It erases the charcoal almost clean off the page. Only a fine shadow of its presence is left behind.

Lastly, I erased part of the charcoal marks with a Tombow Mono Plastic Eraser. It erased cleanly over the paper towel pass, leaving no trace of charcoal. If erased without the paper towel first, then eraser gets dirty quickly and drags the charcoal around the paper. It’s best to erase in two passes: first with paper towel, and then with eraser.

Compare paper towel vs eraser.

Use the slider to switch between the marks erased with paper towel and plastic eraser.

Conclusion

Overall, this is the best willow charcoal I have ever used. It produces very dark marks, it’s incredibly soft and glides easily on paper. This charcoal erases effortlessly with paper towel, and absolutely cleanly with eraser. It can produce delicate lines and wide marks thanks to the way it self-sharpens when using. Its size variety helps quickly cover the page or finesse details.

I bought a stash of this charcoal that will probably last me a lifetime just in case they stop making it. But I hope they won’t, because this is THE tool for gesture life drawing. Feel free to browse my gesture sketch gallery to see this charcoal in action. It’s truly my go to tool during drawing sessions. If I can bring only one drawing tool with me, this is it.

I hope you enjoyed my Coates Willow Charcoal review, I’ll be happy to hear how you use this charcoal in the comments!