A portrait of a man with charcoal

It is not certain who and when first took coal from an extinct fire and began to paint. Probably, this happened at the very beginning of the birth of mankind. Despite its centuries-old history, coal has not lost its popularity to this day.
Coal is very simple to manufacture. A bunch of willow, birch or nut branches was coated with clay and laid on burning coal. So cooked coals of a variety of shapes - round, faceted. They made them of different length and thickness, because the drawings were both large and small.
For today, of course, there is no need to make coal independently. You can buy ready-made charcoal for drawing.