Saturday 20 July 2013

New Charcoal Sketch

Am now looking for some artwork to go in our new kitchen come sitting room... the red poppy is a favourite contender but we also like charcoal sketches so decided I would have a go at a large one (this  is on 25"x20" 200lb watercolour paper and has taken the charcoal quite well) . It's ages since I've done any charcoal sketching... the portraits I do tend to be more defined and tighter... people are looking for a distinct likeness so I can't be too sketchy with them but that didn't matter with this.

The image is one I have painted a couple of times and which I got from one of the Brusho workshops with Joanne so I didn't have too much trouble with the drawing and wonder if I might have left this a couple of stages earlier to keep a bit more spontaneity... if nothing else it has confirmed in my head that I would like to do some more life drawing so need to find a class or group somewhere. 

I did the initial drawing pretty quickly but then spent quite a bit of time on the shading and blending and think I my have gone a bit too far with it... here are the stages

This first one has the spontaneity but needed some tweaking here and there

Worked on it a bit more blending, lightening, blending a bit more and finally

the final effort.

Will put a mount on it and see how I like it then. I don't think it will be going up in my kitchen but am happy enough with it to have another go. I just want a loose impression of something....like my painting really so next time need to look at losing a few more edges here and there and maybe not interpreting the image so literally.



4 comments:

  1. This will look lovely framed. Life drawing is one of the hardest things to do I think, but lovely to do. You seem to have drawn the body beautifully

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  2. Thanks Polly... I love charcoal because you don't have to be too precise and the whole thing can be a sketchy impression, did a very quick study of Marilyn Monroe once, took less than 20 minutes but actually caught the essence of her, find it much easier to do than graphite.

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  3. I find it super done I can draw pictures let alone painting very cleverly done thanks for your comment like that you also a kitty to the painting are I hope we get to see him happy Danielle

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  4. My eyes were drawn to that lovely lower back and bottom, such a lovely drawing - I struggle with charcoal, get smudges everywhere. I do admire this.

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