Wine Anyone? Charcoal Drawing

I just finished this little piece a few days ago 5"x7". It was my last hoorah before diving into oil painting.

8 Likes

That’s really great mate and very realistic. I admire anyone who can work with charcoal. I’ve only ever done the first chapter of the language of drawing (and instead did the painting version) as I just couldn’t get to grips with the charcoal. I think you’ll find the painting easier actually if you can master the charcoal.

Thanks alot, great to hear that it may be easier because I just now watched surface preparation and was blown away at what needs to be done. This will be quite the adventure. I’m really excited!!

1 Like

I’m confident that if you can handle charcoal you can handle paint. I’ve just being doing some portraits in which the method I have used (not explicitly stated by the LOP series but to some extent implied) is to first of all just to paint in black paint with a ‘dry brush’.

If this isn’t just the same and perhaps easier than working in charcoal then I’ll be dammed.

After that I’ve just been adding tints of colour to colourise the painting.

As for the preparation: yes, this is perhaps a disadvantage to the LOP series, in that, unlike the LOD series, you can’t just get going straight away. Not only that, but the board preparation is difficult and you have no real understanding of why you need to do all the steps.

In some ways it would be a good idea just to fudge this initial step and get on with the exercises; but if you do that you will then be working with a different type of canvas which changes the brush dynamic. I guess it depends what your preferred canvas is long term. Personally I would have to believe that the one Anthony recommends is optimal.

I would say that if you have any questions about the preparation of panels you can ask me. But the thing is, I had serious problems replicating the required surface, which I think was because I was using MDF.

If you want a get out I would add that I’ve been using Ampersand Smooth Primed Boards recently (although I ultimately intend to use the ones recommended by LOD) and I’ve got to grips with them very satisfactorily even though they were very slippy at first.

Thanks for the input! I’ll certainly try different methods and see what works best! For the time being I’ll just bite the bullet and create 4-6 16x20 panels like Ani said to do but I do want to purchase the boards you advised, I saw them on Dick Blicks. Anthony once told me that I’m already learning how to paint because of the drawing process, that’s cool!

1 Like

Look great Dan! I love it! :smiley:

1 Like

Thanks alot! Not very exciting but I wanted to draw it as an exercise.

Some might argue that it is an impressive accomplishment to elevate the mundane to the level of art. <3

2 Likes

It’s funny you said that because I was thinking of it as mundane and tried artistically to make it interesting. I should give myself more credit. Thank you!!

2 Likes