We had a rare lesson in art materials at a recent life drawing class.  Robert Guy, a well known local artist, distributed various media to a rather large class (25 or so?) and we did 5 minute drawings of the model to get a feel for chalks, compressed charcoal in various sizes, art bars, conte, pastels, etc.  My favourite was the large chunky square compressed charcoal – although I had to draw rather larger than normal and therefore more quickly to get all the information I wanted from the model in the very short 5 minute pose.  I also loved the art bars and found the colours I was given very pleasing.