Hi , Shona here, from the Gort Framing Studio and The Art Box. I hope you are all healthy and keeping busy out there. So many people are being creative right now and that has to be good for our souls and the planet.

I want to share with you an experiment I made a few weeks back, a successful attempt to make my own charcoal for drawing with. I purchase and use a lot of willow charcoal, and influenced by a collective arts group I have joined, called Not Over Yet , I decided to look at the art materials I am presently using, and see if I could make them more environmentally and artist friendly. Willow charcoal is a very friendly material, that I know of, but I thought making some would be a good start. I have listed my steps, materials and tools below. This blog has been an experiment as well ! have skipped between phone, tablet and now laptop, whilst the internet dipped and dived…perseverance was required!

Meanwhile, about Not Over Yet it is a group of artists from the Kinvara area, West of Ireland, who came together a few months ago to explore the role of creativity in response to the environmental emergency. It is a year long set of projects, involving a mix of artistic platforms , with engagement with the community and individuals. We now sadly have a new crisis to respond too. You can find them on Face Book. Check out Adjusting- A Mail Art Exhibition whilst you are there, and send in your post card art . This is a perfect time to be getting involved!

Now to the charcoal making. I basically burnt the chosen sticks in a tin, excluding air. This activity is for adults, or children with parental supervision, due to the fire risk. You will need..

Secateurs or pruning shears to cut the sticks safely with.
sticks, also called rods or withies . mine varied in widths, but around pencil width and a couple of feet long.
A knife for pairing
A metal tin with a metal lid. I used a golden syrup tin.
Tongs, something that you can securely hold the tin you have chosen with whilst not getting your hand near the fire. Try a barbecue tong.
Hammer and big nail

I gathered 3 different types of sticks, some willow , apple and dogwood from the garden. I am lucky enough to have these material sources to hand. But you will often find willow along the road side hedges. So now you need fire, and please use common sense safety precautions. You can build a small bonfire outside, keep a fire extinguisher and water to hand and obey all campfire laws. However I chose to use our wood burner is it was on anyway. I also let it die down a bit.

I found an old Lyle’s Golden Syrup tin, in my “could come in handy one day “ box of containers and hammered a nail through the lid. Take the lid off first and rest it on a piece of scrap wood, or cardboard to do this. I put one hole in, if your container has a big lid you may need to put a few holes in it.

I then stripped the sticks of their bark, slip a knife under the bark and gently push, it should then glide down under the bark without too much effort. I cut the rods in lengths to fit inside the tin, or to suit for drawing. around 11cm. I have since read that this is a good stage to let the rods dry overnight, I didn’t do that.

I wrapped the bundles in wire, this was only so I could tell the difference between the types of wood used. If using one kind you wont need to do this.

Pop the bundles into the tin.

I placed the tin into the wood stove fire with care, directly ontop of the burning fuel. After 10 minutes I checked it. There was smoke coming from the hole with only an occasional flame as the emitted gasses were lit and burnt away. I started to turn the tin every now and again, to allow the rods at the top of the cylinder tin to be at the bottom. You wont need to do this with a small square box tin.

Here is the theory, by excluding the oxygen , using the controlled environment of the tin , the heat of the fire pushes out the flammable gases and the water in the wood and consumes them, leaving behind carbonised wood.

After 30 minutes I saw very little smoke being emitted, so I decided to remove the tin. You must let the tin cool down before opening it, as the rods can apparently spontaneously combust at this stage ! It took about 10 mins for my tin to cool down. I then used the tongs as a precaution to open the lid, and not my fingers.

I was delighted! all looked good in there. If it doesn’t look like charcoal yet you can return the tin to the fire for another while. It will all be based on variants, how hot your fire is, how close the tin is to the heat, the water content of the rods, the thickness of your tin etc.

The rods will shrink in the heat, leaving you with around half the space you began with. This is why some of my rods fell out of their bundles, leaving it tricky to decide what was willow and what was dogwood .The apple was more knobbly and easier to still recognise.

The results….All looked much the same colour. The dogwood charcoal marks were scratchy and the piece snapped sharply with pressure. The apple charcoal marks were very scratchy, it felt woody still , it was hard to snap. The willow drew smoothly, it was soft and breakable, just like the bought product, except better quality, less residue charcoal on my hands, and the big positive…I made it myself.

Our Hunter wood stove, with a safe concrete surround.

The tin, with a hole in the lid , tools and the rods. From the left, red dogwood, apple and willow.

Paring off the bark. Easy to remove from willow and dogwood, the apple was a little more difficult.

Prepared rods. apple on the left, willow right and dogwood below.

Stripped bundles wrapped in wire .You can leave them to dry out at this stage overnight .

Flammable gases burning off from the tin. About 10 mins in the fire.

Using caution and long handled tongs to turn or remove the tin.

The tin was removed after 30 mins. Left to cool then opened with care. Satisfaction…

Trying out the mark making with my new charcoal.

Over all a great success. My own home made drawing charcoal.