Uncovering Buried Treasure

Back when I was in art school, I had the chance to take a portrait painting class with a professor well known amongst the student body to be one of the hardest, yet most inspiring teachers. I loved listening to him talk about painting. He was absolutely passionate about it, and was one of those guys who would make you remember why you ever decided to go to art school in the first place. Unfortunately, due to the failure of many modern art schools, my skills (and many others’ in the class) were not yet advanced enough to get as much out of the course as we could have. Too many of us were still stumbling over ourselves, trying in vain to mix colors, not even understanding what a value scale was, etc. If you don’t believe that this can happen in art school just check out this video. It’s a complete travesty. You had to pray for good professors. Of course, at the time I was too young and stupid to see how poor some of my foundation classes were. C’est la vie…

Near the beginning of the course, our professor passed out some photocopies that had simple paint mixing formulas for flesh tones. The tones were divided into sets of lights, halftones, darks and neutrals. Add to this ivory black and titanium white and you had a nice formula for portrait painting. I tried to follow the charts in class and would eventually end up with something like “flesh” color, but I definitely couldn’t find a rhyme or reason to it that helped me out much. I used it more as a general guide to point me in the right direction. As I remember now, most of my paintings in that class were utter disasters.

Anyway, I had the surprising forethought to pack that photocopy away among my art supplies and would re-discover it every now and then – usually every time I moved (which was quite a lot during the past decade). Upon moving into my new apartment, I again found it at the bottom of a storage tote and decided to leave it out for easy access since I had been slowly working on the oil painting of my wife. Since completing the grisaille underpainting, I had been reading everything I could find about oil painting trying to figure out how I was going to make the jump into adding color. In an effort to be so prepared that I wouldn’t possibly be able to screw it up, I ended up just making myself more nervous about it and nothing was getting done.

The Method to My Madness

In one of the more “hardcore” oil painting forums that I frequent, I had read some discussion about the well-known portrait artist John Howard Sanden, and the method that he had developed for his students. On a trip to my local library I checked out a copy of his book Painting the Head in Oil. As I was flipping through the pages admiring his work, I suddenly had a very distinct feeling of déjà vu. There was the exact color mixing formula chart that my professor had given me back in college. As it turns out, the actual page from the book has a color chart printed next to the formulas to show you exactly what your mixture should look like. This was the missing piece of the puzzle and the reason that the use of these formulas had evaded me for so long. Sanden’s method, at its core, is very simple and practical, and with a little preparation beforehand, it sets you up to paint for long periods of time without having to stop and mix colors from scratch every few minutes. Being a strong proponent of practicality myself, I naturally decided that this was how I was going to approach the color portion of my painting.

Basically, the method consists of pre-mixing a range of 10 flesh tone values – 3 lights, 2 halftones, 2 darks and 3 neutrals – all of which can be mixed from a combination of standard colors that every serious oil painter should have in his/her repertoire:

• Cadmium Yellow Light
• Yellow Ochre
• Cadmium Red Light
• Venetian Red
• Cadmium Orange
• Burnt Sienna
• Alizarin Crimson
• Chromium Oxide Green
• Viridian
• Cerulean Blue
• Ultramarine Blue
• Ivory Black
• Your favorite white (preferably a Titanium blend or Flake White)

These are to be pre-mixed en masse so that you can simply start with the appropriate “local” flesh color and then modify it slightly as needed in your particular painting. This is an incredibly efficient method and the base colors work as a good starting point for all ethnicities and skin types. It takes a while to mix the initial colors, but the benefits of it more than justify the time investment. You’re going to want to mix large piles of each value so that they last a long time. In between sessions I put mine in a low, flat plastic container lined with wax paper and store it in the freezer (much to the chagrin of my wife).

my Sanden Method color mixes - ready to go

In addition to your 10 flesh values, the next best tool to have in your arsenal is a black-to-white value scale. I had come across this tip while researching the Munsell Color Matching System in the aforementioned “hardcore” artist’s forum. They recommend making a simple, but very effective tool – a value scale made from a paint stirring stick. Mixing a Munsell value scale is pretty intense and could have been a whole post in and of itself, but that story goes beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say, it’s a challenge. Sanden also recommends a value scale and his book even has a basic one printed in it for easy reference, but this is hardly practical when you’re trying to work with oils. The paint-stirrer value scale is the perfect size and easy to hold up to your canvas to make comparisons as you paint. I highly recommend making one for yourself. Be warned, however, that it will take you at least an entire day… It’s much harder than it looks, especially if you aim to match the Munsell value scale, but the benefits are incredible!

my Munsell value scale - one of the most helpful tools I've made

Taking the Next Step

In my previous posts, I had made the assumption that I was going to use oil glazes over my grisaille underpainting and that, essentially, most of the original grisaille would show through. Through countless hours of reading, research, and online discussions with fellow artists, I began to understand that this is not how to properly paint using a grisaille. The point of the grisaille is to help you solve all of the value problems in the first step, and then use it as your guide for the subsequent steps, wherein opaque flesh tones are painted directly over the underpainting. At first I found this idea to be annoying. It seemed like all of the hard work and rendering that I did on the grisaille would be covered up and invisible when the painting is finished – so what’s the point? I found out, however, that the grisaille shows through in subtle, yet highly effective ways. Also, as I added color over top, it definitely didn’t feel like I was completely painting the scene over again. In other words, it didn’t take nearly as much time to paint as the original grisaille.

Step by Step

today's starting point

So here is how it played out in the current session. I began where I left off with my finished grisaille. The painting had been in storage for a few months, so I made sure to clean and dust the surface of the canvas before I began. I had my Sanden Method colors freshly mixed and in their own container. My primary palette is a 12″ x 18″ pane of glass (with duct tape around the edges for my safety) that I re-purposed from an old picture frame. I usually put a sheet of gray paper under it while painting in order to better judge color relationships. On this I had small piles of the above listed colors laid out around the edge.

The basic working method is to pick the area that I want to paint (I started with the darkest flesh tones) and decide which Sanden color is the closest starting point. I put some of this color on my palette. Next, I have to decide what colors to mix with my base color in order to accurately match my reference photo (this is where those mad skills come in…). But I also have to be concerned that I’m matching the value correctly. Values between the palette and the canvas can be deceiving. A color can look like a very close match on the palette, but when you dab a brush stroke on the canvas you’re shocked at how much lighter it is. Enter the Munsell value scale.

All I have to do is hold up the value scale to the area of the grisaille that I want to paint over and find what the relative value is. I then compare that gray value to the color I’m mixing on the palette until they match perfectly (squinting helps you to see the value of the color better while comparing it to the Munsell scale). Then, when I was satisfied with the color mix, I began lightly covering over the area on the canvas. I was thrilled at how using this method sped up the process and helped me to match my values accurately the first time, rather than noodling around for a while trying to guess at it.

laying in the darkest flesh tones

My plan of attack was to do all of the flesh tones first, and then use glazes in a more proper way – mostly on the background of the picture. My wife has a lovely auburn hair color, so I think I will lay some opaque brown paint down first and then glaze some warm reds over it to capture the hue. But for now, I began by working from the darkest flesh tones to the lightest. As I mentioned earlier, I was surprised how much the grisaille actually does still show through, and it truly served as a helpful guide in handling the color. I felt free to totally explore my color choices, rather than get bogged down in modeling form, and within a few hours I had finished the basic lay-in of the flesh tones.

I did notice that by the end of this painting session I had slightly lost a bit of my wife’s likeness, so I’ll need to go back in and fix that next time. Overall, though, I am absolutely thrilled with the outcome of this session. This is by far the best painting I’ve done so far, and I’m already making notes of things that I’ll do differently next time. There is no better teacher than practice and hard work. Until next time…

To be continued…

today's progress - the initial lay-in of the flesh tones

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Wrapping it Up

After nearly one and a half months, my vine charcoal dual-portrait commission is nearly finished. All told, the piece comprised about twenty-plus hours of solid drawing time interspersed with plenty of standing back and staring at it for a while. As my drawing skills have progressed, I’ve found this to be a very important part of the process. I think working on the Bargue plates has been the greatest boon to my skills, in that it has taught me patience. It taught me to make some marks, then step back, observe, compare, correct, and repeat. Every time I finish a new and more challenging piece, I’m reminded of just how much I’ve learned from my introductory work on the Bargue course. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in seriously pursuing representational fine art.

a bunch of sharpened charcoal sticks - ready to go

Ok – getting back to the subject at hand, I found this drawing to progress rather well. Starting out is always the hardest part for me because my evil impatient nature has to be tempered as I do the labor-intensive work of blocking in all of the darkest darks with soft charcoal. My instinct is to head straight-away into rendering, but the natural progression must be followed if the drawing is to turn out correctly.

New Materials

My weapon of choice for this piece was the new Grumbacher vine charcoal. I had heard about it and seen it advertised and had high hopes that it wouldn’t let me down. My professional review – the extra-soft sticks were awfully thin and I had to be extra careful not to break them as I worked. Also, there seemed to be a lot of hard spots in multiple sticks that I tried, which is the most frustrating thing one can encounter when trying to work with vine charcoal. They did, however, achieve a darker tone than I was able to get in my drawing of the Indonesian Children with Windsor & Newton’s extra-soft vine charcoal. There didn’t appear to be a lot of difference between the soft and medium density sticks in regard to their working properties, but they had a nice thickness and were fairly consistent. I employed the hard density sticks the most with this piece, and I found them to be truly wonderful to work with. They sharpened nicely and didn’t wear down too quickly. I found that if I worked with a rotation of 4 sharpened sticks, it would give me enough time to work through a particular passage until it was time that I should stop and observe for a while. I was able to work up some really nice subtle tones in Kirsten’s arms and t-shirt with the hard density sticks.

blocking in the darkest tones first

I found that a good method to slowly build up tone is to lay down some light strokes with hard charcoal and then brush it with a small bristle fan-brush. Again – patience is the key here… The strokes should be laid down very lightly and then brushed lightly. This process has to be repeated multiple times to build up subtle tones, but it really works – especially on surfaces that should have a smooth texture, like skin or cloth. A note of caution, however: avoid brushing over the darkest areas. The soft and extra-soft charcoal doesn’t blend into the paper – it just brushes right off… After that, it’s impossible to build the darks back up to where you began unless you spray your drawing with a workable fixative. And then, in my opinion, it just doesn’t look as good. Also, it’s a good idea to use this technique sparingly – that is, only on smooth textures within the drawing. It can look a bit overdone if used throughout the whole piece.

New Challenges

This drawing was a “next-step” test for me. I had never done a dual-portrait, nor had I attempted to draw someone with a lettered t-shirt. In this case, those letters were very important, too, because they help to tell the “story” of the piece, so they had to be well done and readable. One of my biggest worries going into the project was how to make the picture of Jimmy Fallon appear to be a flat image hanging on the wall behind Kirsten. I knew that I would have to compress the value range in order to achieve this visually. As it turned out, it was a lot easier than I had imagined. I had begun making the darkest marks with extra-soft charcoal, but then decided to brush it off and render his entire portrait in hard charcoal only. This immediately solved the value-range issue and actually helped the drawing to progress much faster.

My model, Kirsten, and her family were a delight to work with. I’m hoping the drawing has captured a little of her fun, free-spirited and slightly devious nature. I can’t wait for her to see the finished piece. One of my favorite things about doing portraits is the challenge of understanding a person and then trying to convey their spirit and the depth of their character on paper. Most of all, there is great satisfaction in producing something for a family that will be handed down through generations to come. I think I’ve found my niche…

the finished piece - Kirsten & Jimmy, 18" x 24", vine charcoal on tinted paper

A Commission with a Twist…

Kirsten meets Jimmy

You know, sometimes life throws us some delightfully unexpected turns… Take, for instance, the current project I’m working on… Recently, a colleague of mine was sharing with me about her daughter Kirsten’s love of the late night TV host (and former Saturday Night Live notable) Jimmy Fallon. She had taken her daughter to New York to attend a taping of his show, where her wildest dream came true – Jimmy came up into the audience after the show, shook her hand and then hugged her. Needless to say, it made Kirsten’s day, month, year, and quite possibly decade!

Her mom had seen some of my Photoshop work and wondered about the possibility of having an image produced with her daughter and Jimmy together in a montage (a birthday gift for a Jimmy super-fan!). After thinking about it for a while, I suggested a dual-portrait with some sort of clever composition that would give her daughter exactly what she wanted, but also go easy on the cheese-factor. (I do have my pride, after all…) In return, she would have a hand-rendered piece of fine art that could be cherished for generations and would: a) make Kirsten happy because she had a picture of herself and Jimmy; b) make her mother happy because it will be a beautiful portrait of her daughter that doesn’t scream “I’m stalking Jimmy Fallon”; and c) make the artist (me) happy because I would get to practice my craft, and with a great family, and Kirsten – a very beautiful, funny, and quick-witted subject. Oh, and did I mention that I would actually get paid??? Who would have thought you could make money in the art business?!

the infamous photo

Kirsten obliged me by posing for portrait photographs and then sharing some of her favorite photos of Jimmy. We arrived at what she confessed was her all-time favorite photo of him, which was promptly selected for inclusion in the dual-portrait. Now far be it from me to impugn the thinking of a 15 year-old girl, but I had to chuckle at the photo she chose. In said photo, Jimmy stares at the camera with a blank expression, hair unkempt, his face lathered with shaving cream. He looks as if he has just rolled out of bed after a late-night bender (he’s still wearing a suit) and is having his morning shave… It’s the look that so many of us guys have in the morning – staring at ourselves in the mirror, trying to collect our thoughts and shake the sleep out of our head enough so that we feel safe scraping a razor blade across our face… This is not a moment we would normally consider a “photo-op”… Although, Jimmy seems to have that charm and baby-face appearance that so many of us guys do not possess. It could well have been a photo of him waking up in a pool of his own vomit, and still the young girls would gush over him…

the proposed composition

But enough ranting… I went home and immediately began working on a composition. Photoshop is a great time-saving ally in finding the perfect composition for my work, and I always try to follow the old-school rules of how to arrange the picture plane, even though I’m utilizing modern technology. After I’ve gotten a rough mock-up finished, I e-mail it to the client for approval before I begin working. Kirsten and her mom both loved it and immediately gave me approval to move forward. Did I mention how much I like these clients???

Rolling Up the Sleeves

As I begin the portrait, I follow the method I described ad nauseum in my post on the drawing of the Indonesian children. My final drawing will be 18″ x 24″, so I again use a Dürer grid to help me transfer a line drawing of my composition onto a full-size sheet of vellum. This drawing will be rather tricky for a couple of reasons: a) it’s a dual portrait (I’m a glutton for punishment); b) if you study the composition photo closely, you’ll see that the drawing is to depict Kirsten sitting in front of a poster-sized image of Jimmy… Since the drawing is to depict a three-dimensional subject (Kirsten) sitting in front of a two-dimensional photograph (Jimmy) it will call for careful attentiveness to the value-range of charcoal I use for each. I don’t necessarily want this to come across as a trompe l’oeil, wherein Jimmy appears ready to jump out of the drawing and yell “LIVE FROM NEW YORK… IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT!!!” That said, I’m thinking that a smaller range of values will be more appropriate to “flatten” the image of Jimmy against the wall behind Kirsten. This will be equally tricky with vine charcoal, since it already has a more limited value range than compressed charcoal or oil paint (did I mention that I’m a glutton for punishment?)… Ah well, all the better to challenge myself with things that nobody will ever notice but me…

the finished line drawing (the lettering took hours!)

After my line drawing is complete, I again make use of my charcoal shavings from earlier drawings by dumping some out on the back-side of my line drawing, rubbing it around with a paper towel, and then using it to transfer my line drawing onto the final paper. For this piece, I’ve selected a brownish-gray sheet of heavy 19″ x 25″ Canson Mi-Tientes. The only other charcoal paper I’ve experimented with thus far is Strathmore. It’s not bad, but I like the heavier thickness of the Mi-Tientes, and I also think it makes for a nicer presentation to the client.

Now the drawing is transferred and I’m ready to begin the actual rendering. Better get the kettle on…

the transferred line drawing - now the fun can begin!

To be continued…

Starting Out Right

A short update for all of my faithful readers: To begin the new year, I’ve made some changes. Having experienced a huge amount of artistic growth within the past year, I’m now at the point where I’ve begun getting commissions for portraiture. In order to present myself more professionally, I’ve completely redesigned the website and made it a bit more focused. The gallery section has also been updated with work that is more recent and best describes my artistic abilities at present. Please have a look using the links on the right-hand column and feel free to leave comments if you like what you see. More work coming soon… Thanks all!

- Daniel R. Hanawalt

Another Experiment

With the Christmas holiday fast approaching, I was blessed with a great excuse to stay indoors and draw, which came in the form of twelve inches of snow in the Philadelphia region. So, instead of finishing up my last-minute shopping, I spent the weekend hunched over a drawing board working on another small charcoal drawing.

I had discovered the importance of surface texture in charcoal while working on my previous drawing of the old lock. With those thoughts fresh in mind, I moved straightaway into a new drawing of a magnolia flower. Given the delicate nature and texture of the flower and the smoothness of the leaves, I decided to use bristolboard, a smooth, white, hot-pressed cover-weight paper. Having never done a charcoal on bristol, I first did some doodling on a small scrap piece to make sure the charcoal would adhere properly and would go dark enough.

The Berol charcoal pencils have a small amount of wax added which helps with surface adhesion, but I also discovered that it creates a shiny buildup over time, and eventually won’t take any more layering of the charcoal. This was easily overcome by applying a coating of workable fixative, which restored the tooth to the paper and allowed me to go heavier and darker in the darkest areas.

The real challenge here was trying to hide the lines. I knew that this drawing would require more blending than any I had done previously – both because of the subject matter, and because I was again working on a small surface (5″ x 7″). As I worked, I discovered a method that seemed to work nicely and slowly build up the surface quality I was looking for. I would start with a layer of black charcoal, then blend it with a paper tortillion (I think the tortillions work better than stomps for whatever reason…). On the flower petals that were in shadow I would then add a layer of white charcoal over the shadow areas and carfully blend it. Then I would go back over with black charcoal, blend, and then repeat the whole process again until I felt the shadows were correct. The lightest lights were the bare paper, and I had to take great care with my edges, where a dark shadow met a highlight, so as not to accidentally bleed charcoal into the white space.

Overall, I was pleased with the drawing, although it took much longer than I had originally expected. This was due mainly to the fact that it took a long time to build up the darksand keep a smooth surface. In the future I think I will probably stick with charcoal paper rather than bristol. I couldn’t imagine doing a large drawing using this process, no matter how patient I think I’ve become! The scan below shows a lot more line-work than is visible on the actual drawing, but this is mostly due to the nature of light in a scanner. The finished piece has a very nice smooth and delicate appearance.

the finished drawing

This is most likely my last post of 2009, so I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone who has followed along on my journey and left encouraging comments. This has been a real motivation for me, and has helped me keep my skills fresh and continuously growing. It began with the Bargue Drawing Course, which forced me to slow down and taught me to observe more carefully before making a mark on the paper. In just six months I have found that I’m much more confident in my ability to accurately represent something on the drawing board or the canvas. I hope that the posts here have been somewhat helpful to those who are also seeking to grow as artists, in light of, and in respect to all of the other obligations that we must meet in our daily lives. Thanks again, and may your holiday season be filled with peace and happiness!

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Tis the Season

With Christmas just around the corner, I’ve been busy working on the first of a few gift drawings. Having just finished my vine charcoal drawing from the previous post, my head was fully in charcoal mode and ready to keep going with another drawing. This particular piece is for an art exchange at my local art league and had to meet certain parameters  – an approximate size of 5″ x 7″ which is much smaller than I prefer to work. Due to the size restrictions, I chose to work with charcoal pencils in order to have a finer point while working.

Starting with General’s charcoal pencils, I quickly abandoned them after many frustrating attempts to sharpen them. Honestly – if these things cannot be sharpened with a brand new hand-held sharpener without the lead breaking, then I just fail to see the point in making and/or using them, and feel that General’s should address the problem. Thankfully, I had a few Berol charcoal pencils that I bought in college but hardly ever used. These are the kind with the string buried in the shaft that you pull – and then peel off the layers of paper when you need more charcoal exposed. I found that I could get a nice long tip with these that I could then sharpen on my sandpaper sharpening block (my new favorite way to sharpen anything). They’re pretty strong, too. I began with a medium to lay in the darkest darks, then switched to a hard for most of the drawing. The hard gave me a nice range of values and I found the wood textures on the door much easier to render than I expected. To finish it out, I used a General’s white charcoal pencil (this one worked just fine) and laid in the highlights as well as the light metal tones on the lock.

A relatively simple drawing, this only took me about four to five hours from start to finish. I think the texture of the paper is a little too noticeable, but this is to be expected working with charcoal at such a small size. Overall, I’m fairly pleased with it and feel it is a gift that I can be proud to give away – which, in the end, is the most important thing!

the finished drawing - black & white charcoal on gray canson paper

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Hello friends. At long last I was able to get back into the studio (a.k.a. – the corner of my bedroom) and revisit the vine charcoal drawing I’ve been working on since September. Fall is the busiest season at my company – October in particular – and things have finally begun to quiet down enough that I can concentrate on other pursuits outside of work. Today I was very happy to be able to put in 6 solid hours of drawing – enough to bring my current piece to completion.

today's starting point

In my last entry, I discussed some of the problems that I was encountering with the Windsor & Newton vine charcoal – mainly the medium density being too soft (making very dark lines) and the hard density being almost too hard (sometimes barely making a line at all!). These problems persisted, even after testing out several medium and hard sticks to see if perhaps I had merely gotten hold of a bad batch. Perhaps on my next drawing I’ll try another brand… Regardless of these slight difficulties, I found most of my success in using the hard sticks and being extremely patient – slowly building up tone. More than once today I thought I just couldn’t take shading that little girl’s arm anymore and was ready to call it quits. Thankfully, my wife talked some sense into me and urged me to be patient and do it right, rather than settle with less than my best effort.

Today I decided to try some blending techniques. Originally, I had intended not to, but due to a mistake that I discovered after beginning the drawing I thought it best to blend the charcoal to achieve the desired results. What was the mistake? I used the wrong side of the paper. Yep… Hey, how was I to know that the good folks at Canson Paper make one side of their Mi-Tientes charcoal paper smoother than the other side? This was pointed out to me by Mr. Darren Rousar, author of Cast Drawing Using the Sight-Size Approach. Thanks so much, Mr. Rousar, for your keen observation – I may have gone on indefinitely wondering why my drawings were showing so much more of a pattern than other works I’ve seen done on the same paper!

Anyway, in order to fill in some of the pattern holes, I used a small, cheap hobby brush with synthetic bristles to wipe around some of my darkest background areas. This worked pretty well, although I had to be careful not to get too cavalier with my brushing, as it was very easy to take too much off the paper. For smaller areas with fine detail, I found a combination of kneaded eraser and chamois to be more suitable. In the end, the detail areas can’t have much blending, unless you’re using a paper stomp. I haven’t had much success with stomps in the past, so I didn’t bother going that direction.

After I had the charcoal built up as much as I felt it could be, I then heightened the drawing with a General’s white charcoal pencil. This ended up being a very tricky process and I accidentally discovered a good way to use it without having it completely throw off the contrast of my drawing. Actually, I’m most thankful that I didn’t completely ruin my drawing with it, as I was having some panic moments while first laying it down. The white charcoal goes down very robustly, even while using light pressure. This, in turn, made my drawing look a bit disjointed. The highlights were becoming too light and I was losing my illusion of reality. I found that if I began to erase the white charcoal with the kneaded eraser, it erased a little, but also blended a little, toning down the highlights quite a bit. This was unexpected, but I found that if I was very careful, I could control the highlights fairly well using this method. After blending/erasing a bit, it is necessary to go back to the same spot with a hard charcoal stick and blend the edges (to contour the form properly).

For the little girl’s dress, I completely covered the area with white charcoal, then blended the larger areas with a chamois. I then used my kneaded eraser in a reductive fashion to pull out some of the shadows in the folds of the dress. These were later reinforced with very light shading from a hard charcoal stick.

At this point, the drawing looked to be pretty well finished. Therefore, I did the next appropriate step – I went out for a coffee and read for a couple of hours. Upon returning, I discovered some tiny details that needed to be added, minor corrections that needed to be made, etc. Now it’s finished! As always, I see some areas that need to be improved and there are some wonderful subtleties in the white dress that the camera just can’t reproduce. However, I’m fairly pleased with my first attempt at vine charcoals. Enjoy!

the finished drawing - Two Indonesian Children

Picking Up Where I Left Off

Greetings to you, my faithful readers! Being on vacation for the past week (ah, so nice…), I wanted to take some time tonight to put up a short post since I haven’t done so in a while. Before I left, I had done about 2 hours worth of work on the drawing from my previous post. This is the first drawing I’ve ever done completely in vine charcoal, so I’ve been putting all of my acquired book-knowledge to practical use. As with many things, however, there is no better teacher than experience and I’ve learned quite a bit about the performance of the charcoal since I’ve begun – some good things, and some annoying things…

Following the advice from some of the books I’ve read on the subject, I began the drawing by laying in the darkest darks with soft vine charcoal. Windsor & Newton carries four densities of vine charcoal – hard, medium, soft, and extra-soft. I began with extra-soft, but soon gave it up because of the frequency of which it needed to be re-sharpened. It was only possible to make a few marks or lines on the paper before the tip would disappear, sacrificing the control I had over the marks I was making. I had a much better go of it with the regular soft charcoal.

first session - lay-in of the darkest darks

Since my background is to be very dark towards the bottom of the picture, I began building up these darks first. The strokes of charcoal were laid down in one direction – not back and forth like I would normally do with pencil. The first thing I noticed in building up dark areas was the saturation of charcoal on the paper. It’s essential to blow off the excess charcoal every once and a while and then continue building up the darks. After what seemed like an eternity, I had most of the background filled in with a first-layer of charcoal. I was a little concerned because it didn’t look especially pretty… The charcoal marks kind of looked like a rat’s nest of lines. Given time and patience building up layers, however, I see that the individual marks begin to disappear and the dark areas become more unified. Varying the angle of the charcoal strokes also helps to fill in some of the uncoated paper as well.

Next, I continued using my soft charcoal to fill in the darkest shadows of the picture. While doing this, I found that I had to make many critical decisions along the way. There were certain areas that seemed fairly dark, but I tried to only use the soft charcoal on the absolute darkest shadows, as I feel that I will have more control if I build some of the other shadows up slowly with medium or hard charcoal.

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

Last night I began my second drawing session with medium-density vine charcoal. I had a slight bit of disappointment with it. When trying to lay in some of the mid-tone shadows, I noticed that it went down much darker than I had anticipated. Not only that, but it was actually difficult to keep light – even when applying very little pressure. After adding some into the background gradient, I decided to try out the hard charcoal on the faces, as I didn’t want to work on them without feeling like I had sufficient control over my materials.

I noticed almost the exact opposite problem with the hard charcoal. While it maintains it’s tip for quite some time, I found that it was difficult to get a consistent line. Being mindful not to damage my paper, I tried not to use too much pressure. Sometimes I would hit a “sweet spot” on the charcoal stick that would give me consistent lines for a while, and then I would hit a hard spot that didn’t seem to lay down anything. I’m using a mahl stick to steady my hand while I draw, and I especially noticed this problem with it because of the angle that the charcoal touches the paper – a little more perpendicular than when drawing freehand. Some thoughts that I’ve had regarding this are that it could be the irregularities of the individual charcoal sticks. I suppose that some of them could be harder or softer than others, but generally classified into W&N’s four densities. After all – this is burnt wood we’re talking about here… I would imagine there has to be some variance from time to time. Also, I would like to try vine charcoal produced by some other manufacturers and compare/contrast a bit, too.

session 2 - beginning to build up medium shadows

Regardless of difficulties, I managed to get some detail work done on the faces in about two hours worth of drawing time. Before I do any more work on them, I need to go over the rest of the surface so as to not over-develop any one area of the drawing at once. A drawing must be brought slowly and consistently throughout the whole picture. More coming soon…

A Boot-Maker With No Boots…

Since late June I’ve been working through the Bargue course as well as the painting from the previous post, “Oil Painting – More Progress”. My work on the Bargue course is, of necessity and design, a long-term project that will likely last some years. At the same time, my painting is progressing slowly – also out of necessity. Wouldn’t want to screw it up by rushing, would I? Anyway, I’ve got the opportunity to exhibit with the local art organizations this Fall, but am sadly lacking any new finished pieces to show. With this in mind, I decided to begin a new drawing in the hopes of having it ready for any upcoming shows in which I would like to participate.

While I feel that it’s important to have my work out in the public eye, I’m nowhere near being ready to “exhibit” yet. Two years ago I set out with the goal to build up a body of work for this purpose, but along the way I learned some important lessons about myself and my abilities, read lots of books, and expanded my knowledge of the craft of drawing and oil painting. Naturally, this has led me to experiment with new techniques, change my artistic direction and develop new goals. So, for now the exhibiting will have to wait…

A Lingering Inspiration

the original photograph

In 2004, an acquaintance of mine was traveling in Indonesia and snapped a photo of a big group of children that he later e-mailed me. I’ve always loved this photo, and was particularly fond of how he captured the girl in the center holding the baby in her arms. She has a wonderful smile on her face, and the baby’s expression is a picture of pure innocence. I had always thought it would make a nice drawing, but never got around to planning it out. Now it will finally come to fruition!

The Process

To organize my thoughts and decide how to approach this subject, I utilized my graphic design skills and worked with the image in Photoshop to do some quick problem-solving. This is an extremely “busy” image, so after deciding on cropping, the size of the drawing, etc., I then erased out all the unnecessary background info and “faked in” the area of the girl’s shoulder that is obscured by the other girl waving in the foreground.  I then threw in a background gradient which I had been envisioning for the finished drawing to give it some depth.

Now the image needs to be transferred onto the drawing paper at the correct size. I have chosen to work with charcoal on a piece of light-gray Canson Mi-Tientes charcoal paper. However, I won’t even touch my final paper until I have the drawing clearly mapped out to the proper scale first. The image will be 11″ x 14″ to be placed in a 16″ x 20″ frame (planning this from the beginning makes it much easier to find a frame that will fit your budget when the work is complete).

Dürer's "Perspective Machine"

To scale the image up to 11″ x 14″ I will use the “Dürer Grid” – so named because of a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer from 1525 that depicts a draughtsman using a wooden grid device to draw a foreshortened view of his subject. This is one of the simplest ways to scale your drawing to your chosen size. You’ll notice in the woodcut that the artist has a small obelisk sitting on the table in front of him. By always keeping his right eye in line with the point of the obelisk, he assures that his view of the 3-dimensional scene will not change. I don’t have to worry about that with my drawing since I’m working from a flat reference photo. All I need to do is make sure that the grid that I put over my photo corresponds to the grid that I draw on my paper.

the "Dürer grid"

For this first step, I will work in graphite pencil on a sheet of tracing paper (you can use any thin paper for this step). I don’t wish to draw a grid on my final paper, as it will cause unnecessary marks that will have to be erased. By completing this step on the tracing paper, I can then transfer it easily to my final paper.

I have divided my 11″ x 14″ picture plane into half-inch intervals for the sake of simplicity. Of course, your grid can be much larger if you prefer, but I normally use a tight grid since I primarily draw people – wherein I need to make sure I attain a good likeness. The tighter the grid, the less room for error…

the line drawing (with white paper underneath for clarity)

The line drawing is completed in about 1-2 hours and I’m now ready to transfer it to the final paper.

If this were a 19th century academic painting, we would call the tracing paper line drawing a cartoon – a full-size preliminary drawing done as a preparation for the final piece (usually an oil painting). One way the masters used to transfer their drawing from the cartoon to the canvas was called pouncing, which involved poking pin-holes along major lines in the drawing, laying it over the primed painting surface, and tapping it with a little pouch of cheesecloth filled with charcoal powder. The powder would leave an impression along the pin-hole lines on the canvas allowing the painter to then begin drawing in the composition with thinned oil paint.

Another method is to rub charcoal dust on the back of your cartoon, place it over your painting surface, and simply trace over the lines lightly, leaving a charcoal impression of the drawing behind.

Yet another method is a modern alternative – transfer paper. Transfer paper looks very similar to wax paper and has one side coated in a dusting of pigment (it comes in a variety of colors). Again, if the artist places this between his painting substrate and the cartoon, he can simply trace over the line drawing to transfer it.

I’ll be using the second method mentioned above – a rubbing of charcoal dust on the back of my cartoon. If you remember my fabulously popular post on how to sharpen vine charcoal, you’ll remember that I mentioned the importance of saving your charcoal dust for later use. Here is a fine example. Never throw away any useful art supply! After sparingly pouring some out on the back, I rubbed it around with a paper towel to coat the paper.

Next, all I need to do is lay it over my piece of charcoal paper, trace the lines, and my drawing is transferred. Easy! Now I’m ready to begin the best part – the actual drawing (it’s about time)!

To be continued…

Halfway There…

The busy season at my workplace has descended upon me in full force, so I was extremely happy to have a few hours to myself yesterday to do some artwork. Overtime pay is great, but I was so pleased to be able to dust off the easel and put it to some good use!

With the advent of the Fall season comes the beginning of a new season for the local art leagues as well, most of which run from September through May, so I thought it best to pick up my brushes and make some more progress on my oil painting that I started earlier this summer (see the post “Painting Break”). Besides, it’s not much fun if you don’t have any work to show!

My goal for this session was to complete the grisaille underpainting. I had originally begun the painting by toning the canvas with raw umber, intending to use the tone as a middle-value that would show through in some areas of the finished painting. It seems, however, that I have this knack for constantly finding new approaches while obsessively reading about painting and drawing. I have been spending some time reading The New Munsell Student Color Set, 2nd Ed., which has completely revolutionized the way I approach color theory in my paintings. Basically, I have begun to think first in terms of a) value before thinking of b) hue or c) chroma (intensity). This led me to change directions and try a method I’ve seen used in some of my reading – beginning with a true grisaille of black & white paint only, then glazing layers of color over it.

the finished grisaille

As I worked on my painting this weekend, I was again careful to be very patient and not accept something as being finished until it was absolutely right – something that has been a problem for me in the past (even now as I type – I see small areas that need correcting before I proceed). Thankfully, the Bargue course has been paying huge dividends in my artwork by causing me to slow down, examine, and re-examine each piece of the work, then compare it to the whole – always keeping the unity of the whole piece at the forefront of my mind. Again, I can’t recommend the Bargue Drawing Course enough! If you desire to be a skilled artist, please consider investing your time in the course and doing it properly. It is well worth it, especially as we’re seeing a renaissance in Realism. Now is the time!

Well, my grisaille is now finished and I’m going to be furiously reading everything I can find about oil glazes while the underpainting dries. Until next time…