Charcoal extraordinaire

'Twas a lovely day when we went to Blue House Yard 

to collect some special charcoal from Iain Loasby, who manages Rivenwood Coppice and uses the wood to make 18th-century style trellises -

and other woody products such as besom brooms, bean poles, pea sticks, kindling, bbq charcoal, drawing charcoal, thick woody pencils -

These were the sticks, 40-55 cm long, hazel, and looking and sounding like glass when gently hit together; they were uber-charcoal, charcoal extraordinaire -

One stick will probably cover acres of paper, but I couldn't resist having three -

and gave the short, fat one a test drive. It took a while to get started, so that all that happened at first was fairly random marks, but after a while the stick got the hang of being used for drawing -

 Particularly pleasurable to use the end, flat, to quickly cover area -

Yes, charcoal is messy, all that fine dark dust - but SO satisfying!

Addendum  - seen, several weeks later, in the shop at West Dean -