Ted Lewin Behaving Badly: Charcoal WC

I've found a cache of Artista brand charcoal watercolor pans that were purchased from old Mr. Graf's estate in Easton Pa when I was a teenager. Mr. Graf was a machinist and weekend artist. My father took me to his estate auction and purchased every piece of studio equipment and supply that he owned. I had two pickups full of canvas, fine oil, watercolor, stretchers of every length, paper, easels, calipers, etc... If he didn't buy it, he made a machinist's version... solid as a rock: my easel for example.

So, I re-discovered these little pans of charcoal mixed with gum arabic and in these metal half-pans. I popped a pan into my drawing kit, along with a couple of white sable brushes (cheap but good spring) and have been messing around in the last couple of days.

Charcoal 1: Ted Lewin, author and illustrator (Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame), holding a modified ram's skull over fellow MFA'er, Eileen San Felipe. I call it "Zombie Maker". I knocked this out in a short sitting... not sure if i like the tiny ted or not... Q thinks he looks like a demented little demon - which, if you knew him, is furthest from the truth... however during his professional wrestling career in the 50s, he would have made you eat your own foot.
Charcoal 2: "Goat Juice"... don't ask, I don't know why... I just do them.
Charcoal 3: "Bear Hunt" done in the moleskine, edge to edge of a page as a test to see how the wet charcoal would handle large wash areas... i haven't tried it with an extender yet, but will.
Charcoal 4: "Charcoal Head" my first effort with the medium... I had just started it as a simple sphere exercise.
As always, you have to click them to see them bigger.