At first, I struggled to use the charcoal stick since it was wobbly and scratchy and it smudged easily, but I loved how loosely I could work. I needed the perfect angle to get the right composition, so I stood behind a bush full of spiderwebs and leaned over the balcony to get the view I wanted. Balancing my drawing board on the curved balcony rails, I dropped my charcoal and had to crawl around under the bushes to find them more times than I’d care to count.