2nd Entry for Mar 27, 2011

From the top these are a 3-minute and a couple of 5-minuter studies, also done with charcoal on 18 x 24" cartridge paper.

I was finding the `grain' of the charcoal much more coarse than that of the graphite, and was wrestling with learning how to hold it/ use it to best advantage.  While B-  took a short rest, I was testing out different strokes and marks on the rest of the page, to try to better get the `feel' of the material.  I felt it was capable of giving me moire than I was getting from it. each drawing tool - whether chalk, or charcoal, or a pencil, I regard as like a musical instrument - one has to learn what range can be coaxed out of it

The quality of the likeness and sensitivity of contour have dropped right off in the studies of this evening. 

Many of these things would be relative non-issues in tems of longer drawings, where things can be finessed through smudging, erasing, redrawing, etc.  But a goal of mine these days is ho cultivate a very direct, very spontaneous drawing approach on moderate-to-good quality papers which pleases me as much as the Conte crayon on newsprint drawings were.  I feel that many of the things I most want in terms of making images of people happen when drawing from life, and the faster the drawing can be done, the more opportunites there are at my disposal in terms of potential sitters and in terms of viable poses, and the less damaging it is to the sitters in the process.

But for that to wok its best, than I have to know the materials I'm working with so well that the drawing is as effortless and intuitive as possible, and in my experience the the best way to do that is by doing tons and tons of drawing. Originally I had given myself one year to learn what the graphite is capable of, but the charcoal was intriguing as a prospect, too.

If you've recently come across this blog, then you can get a sense of the level I was at in working on 24 x 36" sheets of Newsprint if you look at entries from October 2010 or earlier. It was around that time that I decided it would be in my best interests to translate what I was doing onto more archival/commercially viable papers.