Candlelight

14 x 10
Silverpoint on Cream color prepared paper

Here's the latest silverpoint offering. I really don't have much to say about it. Hopefully it speaks for itself. I think there will be another candlelight drawing or two coming down the line.

On the technical side this is about as dark as silverpoint gets. I might be able to push it a bit farther, but not much, and I don't think it really needs to be any darker. If it were I think it would lose that quality of softness it has now. It would take all the air out of the shadows, and they would become more ominous and dramatic. Not going for the Rembrandt look here. Maybe I'll get a chance to play with the image in Photoshop to illustrate the point. All that silver in the darks also makes it almost impossible to get a decent picture. I bet I took 100 pictures of this before I came up with one that is usable. If you look close enough there is still some glare in the hair.

The color of the paper was a bit of a happy accident. Originally I wanted just a light, warm gray, but the raw umber gouache didn't tint out quite the way I expected. I was about to prepare another sheet, but decided to give this a try. I didn't have anything else to use it for after all. I'm glad I continued on with it. The color actually works quite well.

Roses in the Snow

Valentines's day is closing in and there's snow on the ground so this seemed like a timely thing to post. If you're thinking that this isn't quite up to current standards that's because it's a good 20 years old. I was digging through the accumulated junk the other day, and found this illustration, just about the last remaining piece from my first go round in the art world. So the imagery may be timely but the posting is a bit tardy. In my defense though, when this was done there was no internet to post to. I was just waiting for technology to catch up.

So happy Valentine's Day to all the ladies out there, and for the guys, the ball's in your court, I'm covered. For once I didn't forget.