6th entry for Apr. 24, 2012

These are a 10-minute and a 15-minute pose that ended the evening with S-  .  The 10-minute one is done with a hard Nobel charcoal stick on 24 x 36" Durotone Extra White, and the longer study is on a 22 x 30" sheet of Maidstone rag paper with the same material.
The lower one was extensively reworked texturally afterwards, with more charcoal, a blending stomp, eraser and paper towel. It's not a perfect image, but it is quite striking, and does situate S-- into more of a definite, if ambiguous, space.
Somewhere between these two images would I believe be the ideal degree of tonal/background development for my present tastes.

4th entry for Apr 23, 2012

These are a couple of 25-minute studies, working with partial scrim coverage of M-   .

3rd entry for Apr. 23, 2012

These are some 3-minute studies, where a sheer piece of fabric was hanging in front of M-   . It was challenging, working with the altered value range.  At times I found I was `tuning out' the scrim and drawing as if it wasn't there, at which point I needed to pull back a bit and try to clearly see what was actually in front of me.
All of these are hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Sketch paper.

1st entry for Apr. 23, 2012

On the Monday M-  came to work for me and a couple of other artists, and we explored a couple of ideas. Suspension was the first, and these are 2-minute studies with hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper.

Entry for Apr. 1, 2012

On the Sunday afternoon, I was trying out a couple of experiments in using a dark charcoal underlay, then drawing with soft graphite, to create a deliberately low-contrast image.
C-   was the sitter, and these are a 40-minute study above and a 20-minute one below.

2nd entry for Mar 25, 2012

These are a 5-minute study above, and three 10-minute ones below. They are all done with hard compressed charcoal on an 18 x 24" sheet of bond paper for the top study, and the same size of Canson Recycled Sketch paper for the lower three.
I was aiming for my project of not making boring drawings. With no criticism of the people posing intended, some angles of some poses just don't strike such a chord as others. Experimenting with different degrees of cropping and different scales of drawing on the page are an interesting challenge, and leading to some proportion irregularities, but I've elected not to sweat that right now.

2nd entry for Jan 15, 2012

This was a 2 and 1/2 hour study  L-   , using hard compressed charcoal on 22 x 30" 90 lb Maidstone paper.
I did a bit of light brushing of the tonal areas afterwards, to settle some of the surface texture, without totally losing it.

4th Entry for Dec 2, 2011

These are a 15-minute study above, and a 20-minute one below. both done with hard compressed Nobel charcoal.
The upper one is on 18 x 24" Canson Sketch paper, and the lower one on 20 x 26" Maidstone paper.

3rd Entry for Nov. 28, 2011

From the top, these are a 15-minute, a 20-minute and another 15-minute study.
The top two are on 22 x 30" sheets of Maidstone paper, and the lower one is on 21 x 29" Strathmore paper from a roll.
The top one was done with Conte crayon. There are marks on the left-side buttock area and  mid-thigh on the right where grit in the Conte scratched up the soft surface of the paper. I was not impressed by that.
The middle one is the hard compressed Nobel chalk, which behaved much better.
The bottom one was a mix of hard and medium Nobel compressed charcoals. The more coarse 'tooth' of the Strathmore paper is evident, but it did afford a broad tonal range.

2nd Entry for Nov. 28, 2011

These are two 10-minute studies, and s 25-minute one of D-    below.  All of them are on 18 x 24" sheets of the Canson Sketch paper ( what I typically call `cartridge paper' here. )
The top two are done with the hard Nobel compressed charcoal sticks. The middle one has a lot of background shading with an HB Conte crayon.  With the broader variety of drawing materials and paper I've tried over the past year, I realised that I hadn't given Conte a shot on the Canson or other heavier papers.
The lower one is done exclusively with Conte. Like a litho crayon or coloured pencil, I found it tended to `cake up' in dense areas of shading, and I couldn't coax the sensitivity of mark in dark values that I've come to like with harder charcoals.  (examples are the shadows inside his right arm, his hands and where his torso sits on the ground.).
That might be diffferent if I was aiming to do longer drawings and build values methodically. My interest lies in part in having the freedom to set a lot of information down quickly and sensitively, to ideally keep the pose duration as short as possible.
But HB Conte on a smooth newsprint is another story. There, I find its texture finds its fullest flower. Too bad the paper has no longevity...

1st entry for Nov 28, 2011

On the Monday night, D-  was at the Ralph Thornton Centre.  I had done some research into the mystery charcoal and determined that it was Nobel brand. While picking some up at De Serres (a local art store that stocks that), I also saw a Progresso brand woodless black colouring pencil which looked quite appealingly dark.
The top two studies - a 1-minute and 5-minute one respectively - are both the Progresso pencil crayon on bond paper. It was silky-smooth, but didn't get much purchase on the smooth bond I'm getting from Aboveground Art Supplies. Nice for gestures; not so hot for how I like to build darker shading, but not too smeary either.
The next 5-minute study below is Progresso crayon with a bit of Conte crayon to help things along in the darker areas, on the same kind of 18 x 24" bond paper as the top two.
The lower one is a 10-minute study with hard compressed Nobel charcoal stick on 18 x 24" cartridge paper.

I might add that what I refer to as `cartridge paper' these days is more specifically Canson `Sketch' brand paper, from their XL series of 18 x 24" pads.
I really wish they would introduce a 22 x 30 or 24 x 36" XXL series of pads for this...

2nd Entry for Nov. 22, 2011

These are a 10-minute study at top, three 20-minute ones, and a 10-minute one at the bottom. All were done with hard compressed U-Art charcoal.
The top two and bottom one are on 18 x 24" sheets of cartridge paper. The others are on 22 x 30" sheets of Maidstone 90 lb paper. The second from bottom was initially done with willow charcoal, and then hard charcoal drawn on top to add sharpness and bolder dark areas. There wasn't as much time to revisit those darks as I would have liked.

2nd Entry for Nov. 18, 2011

These are three 15-minute studies above, on various Canson papers in the 19 x 25" range. The lower one is a 20-minute study, using 22 x 30" Maidstone 90 lb. paper. I found its' surface promising.

All are done with hard compressed U-Art charcoal sticks.

1st entry for Nov 18, 2011

On the Friday L-   was working. She was someone I wasn't familiar with. These are 10-minute studies. In preparation for a project I decided it would be a paper exploration night. The first one is on  familiar 18 x 24" bond paper.
The lower two are on a couple of different types of Canson paper, both 19 x 25". All are done with the same U-Art hard compressed charcoal.

3rd Entry for Nov. 14, 2011

These are a 15-minute study above and a 25-minute one below.  The top one is done with hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24"cartridge paper, while the lower one is he same U-Art charcoal on a 21 x 29" sheet of Strathmore paper.
For the larger paper, it seems that 25-30 minutes is the optimum time frame; the greater rigidity of the surface means it takes that little bit longer to lay shading down. On a smaller sheet I'm reaching the overkill point around the 20-minute mark - at least for this sort of direct study with minimal background.
...Which is slightly challenging, as almost all the drop-in sessions I get to go no further than 20 minutes at the top end.

2nd Entry for Oct. 25, 2011

These are a 20-minute study above, and a 15-minute one below.  These were done with the same U-art/ Nobel charcoal combination, but these were a first try at using some Strathmore heavier-weight roll paper, cut to 21 x 29".
The larger-sized paper was freeing after using so much 18 x 24" paper. The smaller sheets are much more affordable, but tend to feel constraining.  I wasn't altogether happy with the relative rigidity and greater tooth of the Strathmore paper. I was hoping it would be a bit smoother.  But I have some 24 sheets worth of it, so I'll see what I can coax out of it, before writing it off altogether.

5th Entry for Oct. 16, 2011

The study above was 15 minutes, and the one below was 20 minutes, but I worked on each during the breaks that followed them. Each had a light  underdrawing of willow charcoal that I wiped into the surface, followed by some highlight exposure with a kneaded eraser, and then overdrawing with hard U-Art compressed charcoal.
The willow charcoal really picked up on any finger oil on the paper when wiped, but also afforded a bit of quickly set down `infill' of the paper grain, to tone the harder charcoal's texture down in places. At 15 minutes, that's a rush, but at 20 minutes and up, it is more do-able.
The lower study of B- is nicely rendered in the body, but isn't quite anchored or grounded enough onto the space he is sitting on, I feel.

1st entry for Mar 27, 2011

On the Sunday, B-   was working, and these are 1-minute studies of his trademark very athletic gesture poses. These are done with charcoal on 18 x 24" cartridge paper.

This drawing session marks the start of anew chapter of sorts of material investigation. A couple of days earlier, Jason, one of the other life drawers was using a compressed charcoal stick in the same `woodless pencil' format that the 8B and 9B graphites I have been exploring come in.

I like a lot of things about the graphite sticks, and after a few months using them, I am achieving a degree of control I can live with.  But one thing they lack is the intensity of blackness that a charcoal or Conte crayon affords. It's not that drawings have to have really black marks within them, but I rather like when they do. Unfortunately, I find my earlier preferred Conte crayon gives too coarse-grained a mark on non-newsprint surfaces for my tastes, and tends to scratch up the Japanese papers I like. Graphite has the `grain' I like, and is kind to the fibres of Japanese paper, but is still a little short on the `oomph' of carbon particles.

I thought the woodless charcoal that Jason was using might potentially be an acceptable alternative. It felt less `waxy' than Conte crayon, and therefore might not `cake up' on the tops of the paper fibres as Conte is apt to do on stiffer papers.
The Prang woodless charcoal pencils I picked up had three grades- Soft, Medium and Hard. I started testing them out this night. Sharpening them is a much messier affair. With Conte sticks I had worked out a grip on them that sharpened the stick as I was shading with them, which meant no extra sharpening was needed. The charcoal, like graphite, I tend to blunt while working, so periodic sanding is needed to maintain the right shape, which is a messy process.

These gesture sketches aren't that different from my graphite ones, just a bit bolder in value.