Something for the charcoal lovers

Charcoal and white chalk
14 x 26

According to the stats for this blog a lot of people come here via image search for charcoal drawings and portraits. Considering how few charcoal drawings i do that strikes me as a bit of a surprise. But I'm all about making people happy so here's one for the charcoal lovers out there. I'm still having trouble getting comfortable with the medium, but I like the look enough to keep trying. For bigger drawings it's much better than pencil and a silverpoint this size would take forever. That in itself makes it worth pursuing.

The stats also say there are even more people coming here for the silverpoint drawings. Not today, but there are more on the way. Stay tuned.

A Pile of Portraits

Let's look at a few more drawings this week. Instead of full figures maybe some portraits for a change. And just to mix it up, how about a variety of media. I may use all the labels today.

Why do I use different media? Sometimes it's a matter of size. Silverpoint is good for smaller things, charcoal works better bigger, in my case at least, and pencil works for everything. Sometimes it's just a matter of, "I haven't done one of those in a while." Perhaps not the best of reasons, but it's all I got.


Pencil on Stonehenge paper


Charcoal heightened with white chalk


Silverpoint heightened with white gouache

This is me after all. There has to be a silverpoint drawing.

And for those who are wondering if I have forgotten how to paint.


Oil on canvas
16 x 12

I had a tough time photographing this one. Hope I got the correct picture.

As it turns out these are actually pretty good likenesses. You might recognize a couple of the models. The last is Elandria. She's been here at least twice before. And the first is Jessica who you might recognize from some earlier portrait studies. Thanks to all my lovely models.

Studies in Charcoal

Last time I mentioned that large figure studies in pencil may not be the best idea. Pencil works fine, but it just takes a while on a larger scale. That's why charcoal is used so often. You can lay down larger areas of tone much quicker, and it's relatively easy to model 3-dimensional objects.

Personally, I have a love hate relationship with charcoal. Love the look, hate working with it. For some reason I've just never gotten comfortable with charcoal, but I'm still trying to get there. So here's a couple of my more recent attempts. All in all I think they came out fairly well. It just seemed like it was more of a struggle than it should have been.


I'm experimenting with papers for charcoal too. This is a full sheet of the Strathmore 500 series. It's not a bad paper at all. I've used it on and off for quite some time and really have no complaints. It's a pretty good all purpose drawing paper.


This was done on a piece of Hahnemuhle Bugra. I've been wanting to try this paper for a while, and finally got around to getting some. First off the sheets are about twice the size of the Strathmore. If you want to do some big work that's a good thing. For me and the room I have available to work, that's really too big. Nothing says I can't cut it in half though, so I did. It's marketed as having a rough side and a smoother side like Canson Mi-tienes. And while that may be true, both sides are much toothier than that the Canson. Not necessarily a bad thing but something to be aware of. For me the biggest thing was the softness of the surface as compared to the Strathmore paper. It takes charcoal and pencil quite well, but it's real easy to scuff up the surface. So be a little gentle and keep erasing to a minimum. Actually that's probably a good idea regardless of the paper you're using.

Preliminary drawings

I thought I would drag out a few of these to show some coming attractions as it were. In reality this may be as far as any of them go. Odds are I will never get around to finishing them assuming they even get started. Perhaps you can tell I'm feeling a bit down. No matter, here are the drawings and some of the images that have been rolling around in my head.


pencil with white chalk on pinkish paper

This one has been started and screwed up beyond all recognition. I could probably continue on and save it, but somehow it just doesn't seem worth the trouble. Maybe that will change, and I'll go back to it some day, we'll see. This drawing doesn't seem too bad though so it wasn't a complete waste of time. If I would have done a couple more prelims maybe I wouldn't have messed up the painting or I would have realized I was going down the wrong path sooner. Jump right in, no guts, no glory is usually superceded by fail to plan, plan to fail. In honor of the election, I'll be speaking in bumper sticker from now on. I can be as annoying as any politician. Whoops, spiraling again, sorry.


charcoal with white chalk

Don't hold your breath on this one. I like the drawing. I like the image in general a lot too, but I don't see me really jumping on this one and doing it. First, it's figurative so the marketability is limited around here at least. Second it would be recognizable further limiting marketability. Most people don't want pictures of people they don't know on their walls regardless of how good the image is. Maybe that's just a local thing, but that's what I've got to deal with. All in all, this is a piece that I would be painting strictly for myself, and I've already seen it in my mind so why bother.


pencil with white chalk

This one was done so long ago I'd forgotten about it. Again I like the image in general and I think it would make a good painting, but I'm afraid I'd be doing it for a very small audience of one, me alone. I actually showed it to one of my galleries. They made some joke and blew it off as unmarketable. Not really encouraging.

So am I worrying too much about marketability?

cast drawings

I thought I would post a few of these drawings since I haven't had a chance to photograph anything new. About a year ago I decided to sharpen my drawing skills. So I started doing drawings of Bargue plates. I don't have access to the actual plates, but the book is pretty good. Having said that, none of these are from it. They're all stashed away in sketch books, and getting the paper to lay flat for a photo is just more trouble than it's worth. These drawings are fairly similar though.


pencil
This is one of the earlier drawings. The paper was a bit rougher than it should have been. There's just more "noise" than I would have liked. Live and learn right? You may think the nose is kind of funky too. It was actually broken off, so it's not really funky, it's just gone.


pencil
The paper problem has been corrected here. I think this one is fairly successful. One of the problems I have with the Bargue plates is the lighting. As I understand it the casts were purposely lit to minimize reflected lights. So you have a light, a dark and a transition tone which, to me, results in a flatter than necessary image. On this one I worked from a photo of the sculpture that I downloaded from the Louvre site. In the Bargue book there is also a plate of this same sculpture. At the risk of dislocating my shoulder while patting myself on the back, I like my version better.


charcoal
This is just a bigger version of the same kind of drawings, this time in charcoal.

I don't know that anyone would consider these great art, the originals are, but these drawings, not so much. They weren't really meant to be. They were meant to be practice pieces designed to train the hand and eye. Look, see, draw, then check keeping the drawing as close to the image being copied as possible. Once you get good at rendering from two dimensions to two dimensions start doing the same thing except this time work from life, from a three dimensional object, maybe a real cast. Sound boring? Maybe, but if you want to really polish your drawing it works, and if its done right it works pretty fast.