Silverpoint heightened with white gouache
10 x 14
A return to the candlelight theme here today. This is one of those things that practically drew itself, once it got started at least. It had a rather inauspicious beginning. I do all the hard drawing on regular paper with a plain old everyday pencil. Once I'm satisfied with the basic line drawing I'll transfer it to the prepared silverpoint paper. I wish I could tell you that I'm good enough to do it all right on the final grounded paper, but I can't. Deal with it, I have. You've got to remember that the grounds are pretty fragile and you can't erase a silverpoint line. Anyway, after I'd transferred the drawing I noticed a charcoal smudge right off the end of her nose. Being that it was charcoal I could just erase that, except as it turned out the eraser was a little on the dirty side, and it left and even worse smudge than I'd started with. I've tried to correct things like that in the past, and found out that the best way of dealing with it is to cut your losses and start over from scratch. So I had to trash this before I'd even started. Glad I started over.
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7 comments:
You are the king of silverpoint. This is so lovely. You make folds and drapery look so convincing.
I can't recall if I asked you before, but what grounds do you use for the silverpoint? Are they specifically for silverpoint or do you use acrylic paint or gesso?
Frustrating to have to start over, but yes, better to have done so, than fret over the smudge every time you looked at the piece again.
Thanks but I'm not sure I want to be king. Court jester maybe or master of the stables. Yeah, in charge of the horses, that sounds good.
There are a couple commercial silverpoint grounds out there. Golden makes one that I've never used and Studio Products used to make one but it wasn't very good. Acrylic gesso works but it's a bit of a bother to use and you usually wind up doing some sanding. I use a 50/50 mix of gouache and acrylic gouache. Easy to use, no sanding required and you get a nice silky surface to work on. Gouache or the acrylic gouache will work on its own, but together they solve each's individual shortcomings.
Thanks for dropping by.
I'd hate to imagine how long it took you to complete her dress o.O, it's amasing
I have no idea how long it took. Don't remember it taking a particularly long time though. I don't pay much attention to that since these are mainly done just so I'll have something to do. No deadlines to worry about. They take as long as they take, no big deal. Personally I like the first candlelight drawing better,but I'm pretty happy with the way this one came out too. Thanks.
Lovely work. Where do you currently show any of your work, or have it available?
Gorgeous! Really looking forward to future works -
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