Monday, April 25, 2011

2nd Entry for Mar 31, 2011




(People looking for life drawing instruction - or basic perspective instruction - should take note that I have an intermediate/advanced life drawing class on Wednesday evenings starting in a few days at the TSA, and a perspective basics class on Tuesday mornings. Both run for 10 weeks, and you can get more info through the TSA website. There is still space for any interested students, and all ages of adults are welcome.)


These three longer studies of A-  are an initial experiment in mixing graphite with charcoal. The topmost one is a 15-minute study, initially done with charcoal on 18 x 24" cartridge paper. The two lower 20-minute studies were done with charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of different Japanese papers.
At first I found the `grain' of the charcoal on the paper too coarse. Later in my studio, I was looking at them and tried laying some broad graphite strokes atop the charcoal, and I liked how that gave a much wider tonal range, by filling in some of the white between the charcoal dots, as well as being a tiny bit like a blending stomp in effect.
I felt that was something interesting to pursue further.

Also, it was that night that Chris, the animator was sitting beside me. He once took one of my classes, and remarked, just before A-  started back to work, "Oh no, my teacher is sitting beside me. I better not f--- around now... ". So I wrote a note on it and passed it to him, informing him that I really hoped that my presence would spur him to f--- around more, not less.   After all, messing around is an important element of creative discovery.

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