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I hate charcoal. I hate how I end up with charcoal dust all over my desk and hands and paper. Every time I finish a charcoal drawing I sit back and I say, "Well shit, I could have done that a whole lot better with graphite." I realize it's just a practice thing--I tend to over-blend and lose my highlights, and everything ends up looking muddy. I'll keep working, though, because I can't let charcoal win. Fuck you, charcoal.
I always thought the technique was more akin to painting since you can't let your palm touch the paper or everything becomes a mess. Graphite doesn't lend well to making large contrast-focused drawings.
Sure it does, just not to the same degree as charcoal. No really black blacks. I've got pretty good hand discipline from years of big technical drawings, so palms are fine. Just my fingertips get all black from blending and then I do something stupid like scratch my nose or get streaks all over my shirt. Partly my problem is I want to render the same way as I do with graphite. That is, start really light and build up slowly. You can't really do that with charcoal, at least not quite the same. I always feel like I jump from white paper to really dark really fast. And after being taught for years that smudging with your fingers or using stumps with graphite is bad, it's hard to really embrace it with charcoal. Practice, practice.
All right, so after my earlier frustration I decided to sit down, concentrate, and work on my charcoal. I worked on this for about 8 hours between Friday and Saturday. It's 11x14, charcoal on Bristol board. I'm pretty happy with it! I feel like I've spent entirely too much time staring into Nick Cave's eyes, at this point. And here's a detail of the eyes:
For at least the next day or so, Nick Cave will be staring into your soul whenever you read one of my posts.
You're gonna win my "Ready, Set, Draw!" thread (after I make it) every single week, I think. There's something off about the nose, it's missing a subtle amount of lighting to define its curvature, I think. Could just be the scanner not picking it up though.
I know what you mean and yeah, it's just the scanner. There's a lot of subtlety that I couldn't get to come through in the scanned version. The original has more depth that's really apparent when you see them side by side. You can't really capture the way that light hits the different layers of charcoal with a scanner. Or at least, I can't. I sat here fiddling with levels and contrast in photoshop with the original sitting next to me on my desk for about a half hour before I gave up. Scanner also picked up a lot of graininess that's not there in the original--or at least, isn't so obvious. I'm not really sure what the solution is. Maybe I'll try photographing next time instead of scanning.
Yeah it's not easy finding ideal settings with a scanner. I futzed around with DPI and output files for a while to get something to look right, and ultimately you just have to downscale. A scanner is just too effective at shooting light into the pits of the grain of the paper and having it reflect back as white, which I think is why graphite and charcoal look so grainy. My monitor isn't the greatest either, adjusting levels in Photoshop now shows me that some of that subtle detail came through a little.
So, howzabout them lists? I've been drawing a fair bit just haven't been uploading. Well, that and I just scribble without taking sweet time.
Yeah, sorry. I've got a lot of stuff on my mind and drawing hasn't been one of them. I still want to do it, I just don't know when.
First time putting pencil to paper in 10 years, figure I'll do some Scarlet Speedster. Done with the line work now it's on to the fun part on Saturday.
Bump. I'll wait for a few days until the next update, don't want to be be too annoying. I need to redraw his ass, looks off for some reason.
this whole thread is making me screech and melt into my shooooeeeeessss brb let me make something shitty to add
i doodle shit also i can only seem to get things out of my hands when i'm listening to steve wilkos/jerry springer/maury/whoever. the yelling makes it easier.
I tried personifying this feeling I've been having so often recently. yeah okay sure. Original size here.
I'm backtracking likes so hard right now. I normally don't do that because I'm affraid you'll see me as a creepy stalker but for this amazing thread I'm making an exception. It's really making me want to draw again. I was supposed to go to art school this year but in the first week I had this breakdown because my heart wasn't really in it (don't get me wrong, I love being creative and stuff, just not forever). Since then I haven't really made anything, except some doodles in my notes. I'll post some earlier stuff though, I don't want to miss out on this thread while it's being revived.
