Weekly Faces

So this week I was challenged to use charcoal... just so you know, I really dislike charcoal.. INTENSLEY. I just cannot stand the feel of it, for the same really I don't like chalk pastels.. that dryness on my hands, the dust all over the desk.. ugh!!!

So you can imagine, this one was a tough one for me. 

I took an A4 piece of cartridge paper and cut it in half. I then sorted out my charcoal. The stuff in the paper towel is well over 10yrs old, that is probably the last time i touched it. Then there are the Derwent charcoal pencils... I bought those because I couldn't bear t touch the other stuff. 

I gritted my teeth and covered one half of the paper with the charcoal stick, blending all the gaps with a finger till I had a solid sheet of black. Then I picked up the dust from the table on my fingers and rubbed it into the 2nd sheet. I then brushed this second sheet with a damp brush. This 'sets' the dust somewhat, and create a toned paper. 

I put aside the toned one to dry, and worked on the solid black one. I started to draw using my Derwent battery operated eraser. 

and this is what I got, it was awful to do.... really,really awful. I was covered in dust, it was making me shudder. i spent no more that 15mins on it and most of that was cringing. 

I don't like the end result one little bit, so why am I showing you? well where is the fun in just showing stuff that looks great, we learn more from the rubbish stuff. and this is rubbish hahaha

All I used on this one was the battery eraser and my finger, nothing else. 

so what did I learn? well the battery eraser works great...and I still dislike stick charcoal. 

So then i went back to the toned paper that i had created. This time I used the Derwent charcoal pencils. Immediately they felt a little better, for one thing you are't touching the charcoalie bit.. I felt I had more control as they are a pencil. 

I started with the light pencil

then added some of the medium pencil

and finished with the dark and some of the white { the pencils come in a set of 4, light,med,dark and white} i then blended VERY LIGHTLY with an old scrubby brush. I didnt want long bristle that were going to brush the drawing away, and this one is now so short it acted like a blending stump. 

I am much happier with this one, but I would never say this is my favourite medium to work with.   But it is all about having a go, and I did that. 

Darcy x