Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Note to self...... "use lighter colored paper when sketching with vine charcoal...."

Let me just preface this post by apologizing for not posting anything these past few months.  I had a personal loss and have been dealing with the sadness.  I have been unable to paint and I just let it be, knowing that eventually I would come around.  Yesterday seemed to be the day that broke my hiatus.  I somehow was able to find some joy in my art again. 

This was sketched at a portrait workshop last night.  His name is Billy, and I sketched from life, it was done in about 45 minutes.  I started it thinking I would do a full color pastel sketch.  My thought process was to block in the face using darks, to sort of have the image appear using the negative space and dark values.  I've always wanted to try this approach, and I found it is quite difficult yet very effective.   As I progressed I found I liked the vine charcoal and the effect I was getting.  I didn't want to introduce anything else into the mix (like a light colored pastel to show my lights..... sigh....), so I just let it be.  I like the way this turned out despite the fact that the paper I used is a bit too dark (Canson MT is the paper I used.)  Next time I will just decide in the beginning that it will be a charcoal and use a lighter toned paper - in a perfect world anyway... we all know how that goes.  Sometimes when I plan it goes against me.  More often I get these "happy accidents" (thank you Bob Ross, I've always loved that phrase), or serendipity (thank you Richard McKinley, another great descriptive....).  It's a good thing I at least know how I achieved this, sometimes serendipity occurs but the vehicle used to get there remains a mystery....


© by Christine DiMauro, all rights reserved.

2 comments:

Vanessa said...

Sorry to hear of your loss Christine.hopefully you find a bit more peace by getting back to the easel. Amazing that you sketched from life in 45 minutes, nicely done!

Christine DiMauro said...

Thanks so much Vanessa. Sorry I haven't been back in a while. I found myself preparing for hurricane Sandy, and of course dealing with the mess afterward. Still cleaning up, but we are lucky to not have had damage. So many others are struggling, this was a devestaing storm. Back to the sketch... sketching from life is fun, and sometimes it just comes together and works. I surprised myself when I realized it was 'finished' after 45 minutes. I call it finished when I'm somewhat pleased with the result, though it is nowhere finished if compared to a pastel painting.