Cramp Ball, Char, and Cork
An Online Demonstration With David Begley
Tuesday 21st July, 4pm - 6pm GMT
JOIN LIVE OR WATCH THE RECORDING
Join David Begley for a demonstration and talk on drawing with cramp ball, charcoal, and burnt cork. Cramp ball (Daldinia concentrica) also known as King Alfred's cake, is a fungus which grows on dying or dead trees, in particular, ash. It is a gorgeous drawing medium, hard on the outside, brown and soft on the inside! To make his large drawings and animations, David gathers driftwood along the Wexford coast and bakes it into charcoal, producing a deep, soft black.
David has also worked with ivy, willow, fennel, teasel, bramble and gorse charcoal. In this talk David will demonstrate how to bake and draw with charcoal. He will discuss erasers, papers, sandpaper, and additional drawing tools. David will also discuss how to select, burn, and draw with cork.
‘Burnt cork is a wonderful, versatile medium. For drawing it gives a warm dark grey and its ink is a transparent colour full of character. I use burnt cork to draw form, to create volume and weight. It is excellent for life drawing as its broad marks build forms quickly. With a few marks you achieve a sense of the figure. For drawing backgrounds and space, it is ideal. It erases easily with a putty rubber.Burnt cork is also fantastic for working outdoors: drawing clouds, trees, mountains etc. It is compatible with warm black charcoal such as driftwood.’
David will discuss a selection of his works in these mediums.
The session will conclude with a Q&A, offering the opportunity to delve deeper into the mediums and ask questions.
This workshop is ideal for artists, facilitators, and teachers looking to explore charcoal and related materials.
An instructional PDF will be provided for participants.
About David Begley
David Begley is an award-winning Irish artist, filmmaker, charcoal maker, and arts educator. He works across drawing, painting, monotype, video, sound, and animation. He has exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally.
His work moves between figuration and abstraction and is often inspired by invented mythologies. To make his large drawings and animations he gathers driftwood along the Wexford coast and bakes it into charcoal, producing a deep, soft black. Flame, smoke, and breath recur throughout his monochrome works, where elemental processes become part of the image itself.
Begley is drawn to the act of discovering an image rather than imposing it, working intuitively with materials until a form begins to reveal itself. This approach is central to his monotypes, where images emerge through gesture, pressure, and chance. Figures surface from darkness and dissolve back into it, inhabiting threshold states between presence and disappearance. Hybrid bodies, watchers, and archetypal forms gather within shifting fields of black, suggesting transformation and myth.
In 2020 he was commissioned by Wexford County Council to create The Monk’s Garden, a visual art, heritage, and gardening project. During this project he began making and painting with botanical inks.
Begley is also a renowned art facilitator and tutor, known for his energy, enthusiasm, and generosity. He leads workshops for adults in museums and public art centres across Ireland and contributed to Making Charcoal for Artists by Kate Boucher (The Crowood Press, 2024).
He will facilitate Intuitive drawing at IMMA — the Irish Museum of Modern Art for National Drawing Day on 16 May 2026.
David Begley lives with his wife, artist Hanneke van Ryswyk, and their two children on the coast of County Wexford, Ireland.
David and Hanneke have established an organic vegetable garden at Curracloe NS and facilitate biodiversity walk and draw workshops in Wexford schools.
See work by David Begley at www.davidbegley.com
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