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| Seated Figure (Charcoal and White Chalk on Paper) |
A good way to transition from drawing to painting is by
drawing on toned paper. Working with graphite is a great way to get a feel for
the basics of drawing, but as you progress, you will need new methods to
reproduce what you see. Different approaches will build off of each other. Because
white chalk is additive (building form by adding pigment to a surface), this
method can easily develop into pastel or oil paint. When one works with white
chalk, they will start to think about light differently: the way light moves
across form and slowly builds up to a highlight. This blog post describes my
approach to drawing on toned paper with charcoal and white chalk.
Before anything else, a brief word about paper: to achieve
the greatest effect, a mid-tone to dark value should be chosen. This will not
only make your drawing appear luminous, but it will speed up the drawing
process. My personal favorite is Hanhnemuhle laid paper, but Strathmore
charcoal paper, and Canson Mi Teintes pastel paper offer a comparatively broader
range of hues to choose from. I must warn you, if you’re vegan, that the Mi
Teintes paper is sized with animal-based gelatin. Finding no suitable tones,
the artist can always use watercolor to tone paper to their personal
preference. What distinguishes charcoal paper from smoother plate finishes or
Bristol paper is its pronounced tooth. The tooth of a paper can be described as
texture, and it dictates how much material the paper will hold. Usually the
opposite sides of paper will have different textures, one side will be
smoother, and the other will contain more tooth. Always be sure to try both
sides, especially the case with Canson Mi Teintes.
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| From left to right - Vine Charcoal, General's Charcoal Pencil (Compressed Charcoal), Stabilo Carbothello Pastel Pencil, General's White Charcoal Pencil |
Once you have your paper, you can put together your
materials. In the beginning, I use vine charcoal to map out the lights and
darks of my image. Vine charcoal won’t fill up the tooth of the paper too
quickly, and it can be moved around for easy corrections. After I have a
working structure, I will introduce white chalk, working outwards from the more
pronounced highlights. I use a Stabilo Carbothello pastel pencil as it has the
lightest touch, being able to produce delicate grays. Another benefit is that
the Carbothello can be moved around/erased, in case your initial placement of
the highlight is incorrect. Once a basic sense of form has been established, I
move back into the darks with compressed charcoal, giving definition and
affixing the vine charcoal to the surface. I use General’s Charcoal pencils,
using the softer grades (4B and 6B) to mass in tone, and harder grades to
refine my placements and add detail. If lines become too apparent, I will use a
stump or tortillon to blend the area, always making sure the pictorial focus
remains in the light areas. If I find that the value of my highlight does not
match my model, I will build up the light mass with a General’s white charcoal
pencil. I will extend this to a white Prismacolor Nupastel if I need an even
brighter highlight; for example, the reflection of light on metal. The same works conversely for darks. If I need to extend my range in the shadows, I will accent my drawing using black pastel.
When you finish, the surface of the image will be delicate
to the touch; just grazing the surface will take some of your drawing with it. Because
of this, some artists use fixative. I abstain as I find it has a tendency to
darken the image and kill some of its vibrancy. Another benefit of working in
this method is that charcoal has no glare and can be viewed in any light
condition.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them
below.
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| Portrait in Charcoal and White Chalk |
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