I've been struggling with this commission for a while now, debating what mediums to use and how best to crop the picture. All until Jason (genius that he is!) suggested I try it in charcoal! When I got the original picture in the mail, I sighed: a 5x6 magazine clipping with multiple creases showing a very, very dark picture. Now, as artists, we all wish our clients would send us sensibly lit, fully realized reference pictures...but alas this is not always the case. I really didn't like the picture at all before I actually put pencil to paper and started sketching it out, haha. But! Once I started the process, I had a rather nice time doing it! Plus it was very much fun to get back into charcoal, which I haven't touched since college.
So, here is the work-in-progress shot. I used pencil sketch to start off on this random super smooth paper I found lying around my studio. Then layered down some vine charcoal to get a good middle ground and topped off the super darks with compressed charcoal (my favorite!). Boy that sounds like a recipe! mmm, dammit now im hungry. haha.
And voila, finished piece! I was impressed this only took about 3.4 hrs to do! Charcoal is one speedy medium!
1 comment:
well done! in 3.4 hours no less...charcoal has always been an indomitable adversary for me. I like mechanical pencils.
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