Noah

Charcoal drawing ( 7 x 9  in ) on print stock paper.  This was done largely with charcoal dust applied with  a sponge and the dark lines drawn with vine charcoal. Light areas are lifted by eraser and a bit of white conte used for the lightest highlights.  There is so much to be learned while doing a simple charcoal drawing.

I will continue with this technique but my next charcoal drawing will be on recently acquired Rives paper, where I am hoping to achieve more of a watercolor effect.

Watching baby grow

I attended an open studio where a fellow artist created a beautiful charcoal drawing using charcoal dust and applying the charcoal with a wedge cosmetic sponge on Rives BK paper. His picture had a watercolor type quality about it that I found very appealing. Light areas can be lifted off the surface using the sponge or kneaded eraser and darker areas reenforced using a stick of soft vine charcoal.

I tried this approach for the first time in the above picture. The paper that I used was not quite white enough and had a bit of tooth to it, so I couldn't really get the bright whites that I wanted. Pushing the charcoal around the surface was more difficult than I had expected. I can see another trip to the art supply store now to buy Rives paper. 

I do love the composition of this picture which was done from a photograph. There is a strong visual pull towards the face of the baby, which follows the direction in which the parents are looking.

Pastel on blue toned charcoal paper - painted from life at open studio. One of my goals in this painting was to use the underneath tone of the paper in the picture. I achieved that best on the clothing, but less successfully in the face, where by tring to get a likeness of the model, I feel that I somewhat overworked this area. I will remove some of the pastel in the face to get back to the tone of the paper, and will definitely remove those two sharp lines in the lower right that are very distracting. It really helps to view the piece on a photograph and away from the easel.