More Value Sketches for Portraits

One thing I am learning is that I need to do lots of preparatory sketches before I take on a portrait in oils. My impatience gets the better of me and I love to get stuck in, but I've noticed that the final paintings need a lot of work on getting the values right. I am doing a mini-series on "Melancholy" and decided I needed to get to grips with the correct values and I was right. It took me two sessions to get this basic charcoal sketch as close as possible to the values of the original photograph. After I had finished the first phase I sprayed fixative on it and left it overnight. This is a wonderful part of charcoal drawing because pushing charcoal over the drawing the next day is wonderful - the darks turn to a very deep coal black.

The first one is the correct and final one. After I thought I was finshed, I felt there was something that was just not authentic about the face. I noticed that I had drawn a line around the side of the face closest to the light (second photograph below) and no such line exists in the photograph - the face almost merges with the background. The gouache doesn't look too good, but it helped me see my sketch align with the photograph which was the whole purpose of the exercise. I'm now always going to do value sketches. Always.

"FINAL Value Sketch for Melancholy Portrait Series"
Charcoal & Gouache on Cartridge Paper - 12" x 9" (Approx.)

"Value Sketch for Melancholy Portrait Series"
Charcoal on Cartridge Paper - 12"x 8" (Approx.)

Drawing Christmas Baubles

I have just bought some mundane objects to draw...yes, these are the items in question. Christmas baubles and it's only September. No statuary here for a realist challenge, just orbs, shiny orbs, which are well nigh impossible to render, but try I shall. I intended for the Drawing Vault to have a real vault of drawings to catalogue my progress, but with so little time, and so few opportunities to get into the studio, I am having a rebellion all of my own. Who on earth would choose such items? Well, yes, me, but why? They are beautiful in real life to be sure, but they are also difficult objects to draw. I know this because eggs are notoriously difficult to render in paint and nearly as difficult in pencil, but this should be a lot of fun. Once I have had a few tries, I will be painting them in as many styles as I need to investigate everything about them, and I will post them over on the Painting Vault.

I am having a lot of thoughts about drawing, but this one has no real romance in it for me, except the technical challenge. I love the objects and their colours, but they are so industrial and so prolific, I just wonder if I will be able to sustain the project through to its end.

Searching for Objects to Draw

I can't find models, subjects, or objects to draw right now. Nothing will do except some really wonderful statuary. Ancient, un-fresh, time-worn, and with a patina that is almost impossible to recreate on paper or canvas. Mind-blowing beauty is what I am referring to here. I can't stop thinking about where I could find a Roman or Greek head, a soldier warrior maybe, or some great hero of the past, but outside museums, they don't exist, and I want to take one into my home to practice my drawing. Yes, pretty crazy and obsessive I know but these thoughts won't go away and they are pretty well darn near unrequited. Artists suffer from the weirdest moments... Moments which could be called Proustian in nature, triggered by the most unsuspecting assaults on the senses, which turn one inwards to other moments long-gone when one was face to face with the drawing board, just stroking that chalk or pencil across the paper, not noticing time or light or breath, just the two of us, or maybe the one of us; artist and subject, a unit in time breathing in the wonderful fragrances of the artist's life. The Drawing Vault will have to wait a while for the statuary, but I feel so pressured now to find that classical 'something' to have in my home that I could investigate from every angle, with every material and under many different lighting conditions. This will happen.

Can Drawing Make Us More Intelligent?

This is a thought that has been bothering me a lot lately. After all, they don't tell you this at art college or at univeristy, they don't even hint at it. But as one of my art teachers said, I thought rather pompously at the time: "There are two types of people in the world - those who see and those who don't see". I think I know what he means and possibly teachers who have a greater understanding of how each line and delineation of form works on the brain or consciousness would have the answer, but I am not so sure. I really have to think this one through. Is there really a difference between the right brained person and the left brained person. I would love to start some sort of research on this, because I have found over many years, those who can draw really well, are very perceptive. Perceptive in areas other than drawing. Oh of course, they can make superb representational works, but they are perceptive about life. I have also noticed that those who can't draw (or maybe won't draw) are not so psychologicaly astute as their so-called right brained brothers and sisters. Maybe I am drawing to broad a picture here and the sweep is too prejudiced, but I am going to investigate this and post back here later. I am putting on the brakes now and will report back in a few weeks. There must be something out there on the web that deals with this. Anyway, back to looking for a decent art class in London this week, and off to browse some delicious art materials stores.