Charcoal

Paperbark Tree

I like using different mediums, taking a break from graphite now and then. Still, I prefer the 'drawing' mediums to oils or watercolour. Charcoal is fun, I tend to get a bit messy but it is a good way to break my thoughts away from the intensive detail of my graphite work.

This was a demonstration peice for my final Wednesday class of this term. Sadly, all classes have been cancelled for the foreseeable future. I hope to post here regularly and hope my students will follow along.

Last week the class went outside and sketched plein air some of the lovely trees around the art center studio (actually, its a Scout hall). Most of the students chose a large, lollipop shaped paperbark tree, so I drew it as well. We took photos of the tree as well as sketching it. This week we returned inside to the studio to work up our drawing using the sketches and photos as reference.

Well... actually, only one student showed up. Due to the Covid19 scare most had stayed away. 

So I did a demonstration work with Monica - and we had a good time together!

The work is on A3 Art Spectrum Colourfix 'Rose Grey'. I began by laying down broad areas of tone using a piece of vine charcoal then smudging and working it up with a tortillion. Next came more detailed work with charcoal pencils. Pencils used were Derwent Charcoal pencils, Light, Medium and Dark grades with highlights in white charcoal. Time spent was about 1.5 hours or so.

Paperbark tree for Monica

Sepia Ink

California Blue Oak

Using both Staedler Mars and Adel sepia coloured pens on 250gsm Lana Bristol smooth paper, I created this work as a demonstration piece for my Thursday night class.

Unfortunately, due to the Corvid 19 crisis all classes have been cancelled until further notice. However, I finished the work today and am posting it here for viewing.

I used the Adel sepia pen first, creating crosshatch build up that I then washed with water to create the toned background and clumps of the tree. I did this in two stages so I achieved two depths of tonal wash. The linework in the tree was then done as hatching and squiggles the Staedler pen to create depth and detail. The Staedler pen is just a touch darker and slightly more red. Not obvioulsy so, but I felt it made a difference. The linework in the sky, hills and shadow foreground was with the Adel pen, which is very slightly finer and browner tone.

I deliberately cropped the right side of the drawing as shown here as I felt it was a bit more interesting that way. Cropped size is 35 x 24cm. I used combined references - sketches I did in California of trees, photos and internet images. So it is not any one particular tree, but a generic California Blue Oak.  This oak Quercus doglasii is endemich to the hills, coastal ranges and foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

HC at the VAS

2020 George Hicks Foundation Contemporary Exhibition

Wow! Last night I was awarded a Highly Commended at the 2020 VAS George Hicks Foundation Contemporary Exhibititon. This was a delightful surprise  - especially as I had to be coaxed into exhbiting (thank you Kris). I didn't think I had anything really contemporary enough as I am not really an abastract style of artist. But contemporary really means of the now, made today,  so I took a chance and entered my work 'Flight of the Wingnuts'.

This work was initially exhibited last year at Tacit in my solo show 'Flights of Fancy' and this was only its' second outing.
The judge was Robin Stewart, an exceptional Melbourne artist with a strong interest in abstract/figurative painting. He said some very nice things about this work and his support is especially encouraging.  He even kindly signed my award for me. 😊

HC from VAS

Tacit presents:

20(2020)

Opening night at Tacit gallery, Wednesday 4 March marks the celebration of Tacit's 20th anniversary.

20(2020) is a massive group exhibition featuring some 135 artists who have exhibited at Tacit in the past 20 years. All artists are working on a 20 inch x 20 inch canvas.

You can imagine how challenged I was drawing graphite on canvas! Luckily TJ Bateson gave me some very helpful tips on canvas prep. Eight coats of gesso and fine sanding between each coat resulted in a porcelain smooth surface that responded well to liquid graphite and dry graphite pencils. For this exhibition I did a variant of my 'Aeronaut' drawing and Tacit kindly put it on their invites!

Some of the other artists featured include Terri Brooks, Damon Kowarsky, Rosemary Harris-Arnott, Denise de Keyzer, Nadeen Lovell, Helen McInnis, Mark Seabrook and Lisa O'Keefe.

Would love to see you there on opening night - it promises to be one heck of an opening!

Red Chalk Lion

Demonstration Piece

I did this drawing yesterday as a demonstration piece during my Wednesday class. When using the chalks people often try to draw the 'colour', but you need to think of the tone instead. The best way I can explin is to look at your colour reference and ask yourself; 'How would I draw that in graphite?' Then, think of the red chalk as your first tone (like an HB maybe). The tone of the paper in this instance is the mid tone. The Sepia and Umber chalks are the dark tones.

I felt a full demo drawing would help get across the idea of using the Sanguine/Sepia/Umber chalks as tone not colour. My lion is a bit wonky proportionally, but he looks like a lion at least!

Time: One Hour

Medium: Staedtler Mars Pastel Pencils as the skull drawing. Some tortillion use, some kneadable eraser/blue tack  lifting off.

Paper: Strathmore Toned Tan

Reference: Photo of a Werribee zoo lion taken in 2018

Sanguine (red chalk) drawing

...in the Masters footsteps...

Before the invention of the modern graphite pencil the most commonly used drawing medium used by artists were natural occuring chalks/earth pigments. Sanguine (Hematite) is a red-brown iron oxide chalk that is often used and was a favourite tool of the Renaissance masters. When teamed with toned papers and touches of black and white you can create wonderfully sculptural forms.

My students and I will be exploring these techniques this term. Although I have many different sanguine, sepia and umber pencils already I couldn't resist this set of Staetdler Mars pastel pencils currently on special at Eckersley's.

Now having purchased a set I had to try them out! 

For this exercise I choose to do a sketch drawing of a skull. Hamlet lives on top of my supplies cupboard, so I took him down, dusted him off and set up my drawing station:

You can see how I have put Hamlet on white paper and behind him so I have a clean veiw and nice shadows cast by the direct lighting set up. Also, my tools are to hand, the Stadtler pencils as well as some conte blocks, a tortillion, kneadable eraser and white pvc eraser pen. Additionally, I did a quick sketch in my visual diary in pencil to make sure I understood the proportions correctly.

I am drawing the final on Strathmore 180gsm tan toned paper. 

Some steps along the way showing you the progression:

And the final result. This took approximately 2 - 3 hours from initial pencil sketch to this final result:

Because this was a fairly quick sketch, it is a bit rough and ready. However, I enjoyed exploring these pencils and like the result. Using a toned paper means that all the mid-tones are established at the start and the drawing is done in the highlights and dark areas. I am going to use these pencils again and try a more refined drawing next. 

Great fun!

Snow Leopard

Colour Pencil on Toned Paper

The following is from one of the demonstrations and exercised I did with my recient class at Camp Creative, a Snow Leopard in the soft Prismacolour Premier pencils. I don’t use Prismacolour pencils often as I generally find them too soft, but I do like their ability to blend and layer over coloured papers. As I didn’t want the class to have to spend too much on different types of paper for this class, I brought along a pad of the Strathmore Tan paper A3 180gsm. This is a lighter weight paper than I usually work with, but is robust enough to take several layers of pencils. As it is a thinner paper it is possible (just) to use the trace method of transferring a line drawing via a light box or window.

Why draw on toned paper? Well, working on toned paper can lead to a very realistic result . Remember, just as there is no true black in life, neither is there white. There is the sun, and everything else is darker than that.  So if your paper is darker than white it gives you an edge in your tonal range. It is easier to push a dark on tone paper, and you can always add a white highlight if you wish. Mistakes made on the original drawing are easier to hide. Because you start with a tone, your drawing time is faster as you don’t need to draw that in, it is there for you. You draw the tonal range either side of the paper colour.

One drawback to toned paper is that it can affect the colour hue of your pencil when laid down. So you MUST do a test sheet of your pencils on your chosen paper. So this is how I began. The Snow Leopard image is a photo I took several years back at the Melbourne Zoo.

As you can see, the Prismacolour pencils worked well and were quite intense in hue compared to my preferred Staedtler Mars Karat pencils - although you can certainly mix the two together if you are lacking a particular colour in the Prismacolour range.

Here is the the final result:

Very shortly there will be a step-by-step post on Mike Sibley's website showing the development of this work - joining is simple and inexpensive. But if you wish, I have a pdf available of this progress, simply contact me and I will send it to you.

Camp Creative 2

Wednesday & Thursday Morning

Wednesday is landscape day!  It can be fun to expand your work to express an open sky and full background. We discussed various ways to plan a composition for a landscape; how to maniuplate your reference to create a pleasing series of shapes, understanding the foreground, mid and background - and a few other hints and tips. We also looked at ways to create tone, using tortillon/paper stumps, hatching and scrumble effects and also using water soluble graphite pencils as a wash base. This landscape exercise had a mixed result with the students - about 1/3 loved it, another 1/3 hated it and struggled with it, and the last third were ambivilent. But love or hate it, all agreed it was worth the time to attempt the subject.

Haybales near Wattle Flat. Class demonstration, incomplete. Grapitint and 4B W/S graphite pencil plus HB, 2B & 4B graphite on Fabriano 300gsm hot press, A3.

Thursday Afternoon/Friday

Working on toned paper is also great fun - with a mid-tone grey or tan you can build your tones up and down leaving the colour paper to work as your mid tones. In this exercise students were given some Strathmore 180gsm Tan Toned paper and asked to use colour pencils to create an animal portrait or a human portrait of their own choosing. I demonstrated a quick portrait of David Helfgott, the patron of Camp Creative. We were lucky to see him perform for us on Monday night where I took a few mental notes and quick sketches. As well, the printed program had a good shot of David with which I based this work.

'David' Prismacolour pencils on Strathmore Toned Tan Paper - 1 hour demo.

I also started an animal portrait that demonstrated fur techniques. This is currently a wip and I hope to produce a progressive pdf of the work to completion.

'Snow Leopard' Prismacolour pencils on Strathmore Toned Tan paper - WIP

Camp Creative

Monday and Tuesday At Camp Creative

Camp Creative in Bellingen, NSW has started - and it has been a wonderful start to the week. We are very lucky in that the weather is balmy and warm without being very hot. Just perfect in fact. 

There are 13 students in the class and each one is  a joy to work with. It is always inspiring to meet and teach people new methods and techniques.

Monday:

I started everyone off with tonal studies - as several are repeat students I didn't want them to have to redo the value scale exercises. So instead I asked each to bring in a plain, simple glass. This allowed me to cover a range of topics - drawing circles and forms in perspective, different grades of pencils, tonal values, reflections, and working dark to light.

Quick demonstration. 4B, HB, F, 2H graphite pencils. Less than an hour 

Then students took the same glass and concentrated on highlights only, drawing white on black.

Demonstration. White colour pencil, white charcoal pencil, white gel pen. 10/15 minutes.

Finally, again using the same glass, rendered in colour pencils. (wax/resin based)

Demonstration. Prismacolour pencils. Over an hour 

Tuesday

Building on the colour pencil lessons of Tueseday, students advanced to Aquarelle colour pencils. Subject was to be a botanical item. Once more perspective was discussed, especially showing how to draw flowers and forms from an angled or side view. Blending colours using water washes created by the pencils and then building on those layers with more colour wash or dry colour was demonstrated. This was an all day exercise and most students finished a drawing - some did more. All there results were darn great!

Demonstration. Actual leaf on left. Drawing on right in Staedler Mars Karat Aquarelle pencils.

Tomorrow - Wednesday, we will be looking at Watersoluble graphites and create a landscape image.

My Fav Pencils are back!

Staedler Mars Karat Aquarell Watercolour

I love these colour pencils and have used them for decades - in fact for nearly 40 years! Brilliant colours that work well wet or dry. Excellent blending, good strong colour fastness. Nice hard leads that allow you to sharpen to a point and draw crisp hair lines. IMO these pencils are far superior to any other brand in the market. These are professional, top of the line, colour pencils.  Here is an excellent review on bestpencils.com. 

So you can imagine my dismay when I was told a few years back that Staedler Australia was no longer going to sell these pencils into art stores.  But someone at Staedler heard my pleas and they are now back! You can purchase them online at Officeworks throughout Australia or Bennetts who will also deliver Australia wide.

These are a professional standard, premium colour pencil and cosequently costly. But you get what you pay for, and although I don't need more, I could not resist and just purchased a brand new box of 60.

Oh! Pretty New Pencils! 😍

Why not indulge yourself and buy some... even if it is just a set of 12 or 24 I bet you will love them! Just remember, if you want the best, you have to pay for them.