conte crayon
Two drawings from Tuesday. I had been getting a little frustrated with my linear style, and made a conscious decision to be loosen up a bit and use the conte crayon more tonally. This involves a bolder, less hesitant, smudge and erase technique, which seems to have made a difference.
In the leaning pose (twenty minutes) there’s light bouncing around all over the place. The dark areas behind the figure really free up the use of light and dark to describe how the light falls on the figure.
The upright pose (one hour) is maybe less immediate and more controlled. I probably should have made more of the ‘dark surround trick’, but then that may have scuppered the impact of the hair. Perhaps this should be cropped to just the head and shoulders. The drawing that is, not her hair.
An interesting thing about Conte crayon is that it was invented because the Napoleonic wars prevented imports of graphite from Britain. The main source of drawing quality graphite was a deposit in Cumbria, discovered in about 1500, and developed during Industrial Revolution. This explains why a lot of pencils – Derwent, Cumberland, Lakeland - have names associated with the Lake District, which had puzzled me for a time. The baked Conte crayon process was invented by a Monsieur Conte, in Paris. Quelle Surprise!
No comments:
Post a Comment