Total Art Soul - for artists

Right, I said I'd do this so now I've got to :)

Theres been a lot in the forum here about peoples journeys with their art, so thought I'd add my two penn'orth. I've been working in charcoal pencil for about ten years  and it's now pretty much all I use. It gives different results on different papers- the pieces below are on Langton extra smooth, which has a beautiful velvet finish perfect for capturing this kind of detail. These were my first experimants, I already know what I'll do differently on the next ones of the ferns but for a suck-it-and-see test, I was quite pleased with the results.

I've included the photos to show the changes I made to get the best results from the materials- I long ago realised it actually often works better if you don't try and replicate the photo exactly but use the medium's strengths to create something new.

If that doesn't work, take the best advice I ever had from a fellow artist- 'Nobody will ever know its not supposed to look like that unless you tell them :)'.  So true- if all alse fails, do the newsreader thing, look and sound supremely confident and they'll believe it every time.;

This is one of the photos I took in the garden after it had been raining.



And this is my drawing :) It's a wee bit fuzzy here as my scanner isnt great, but you get the idea. To get the contrast between plant and water, I blended the leaves but drew the water and left it. This is only 3" square by the way, I'm too busy playing to do anything bigger right now :)

Next up- photo 2 from the same afternoon, this was some wheat thats grown up from the bird seed we put out :)



Again, my efforts- I deliberately left the background simple, I normally have a terrible compulsion to draw every dratted detail but I knew it would detract from the focus in these so I'm having to change my style for the first time in years!

I've already decided these arent good enough and have set up more pictures to go, will share my findings as I go along.

Quick tip for anyone thinking of trying charcoal pencil- dont buy the expensive blended ones. I've tried them all and abandoned them very quickly. I use the cheapest, pure charcoal ones I can get my mitts on, currently Anker, which are about £2.50 for a pack of 12. They can be sharpened to a needle point and blend beautifully.


More later,
The short half of Grin, Grimace and Squeak!