At the beginning of the month I set about using charcoal and have just uploaded Target 2 in the Traditional Pathway as well as the Resources page and Visual References: there isn’t too much to it to be truthful.
In the target, I’ve shared some of the key experiences and tips. However, the biggest thing for me was the rather frustrating inability to get fine details which in turn has led me to abandon having fine details. This is a good thing, me thinks. Having seen some people on youtube, I know getting some detail is possible, even photo-realistic level of detail but actually as part of a learning curve, that is not so important. For example in the above drawing, the latest drawing, I actually drew an outline first. That outline took less than 2 mins.
I then used the compressed charcoal to do all the darker bits which didn’t end up being that dark. I then spread around the charcoal to try and get some colour around the skull and upon which I could add values. The part I wasn’t really bothered with were the teeth – just too much detail. If you see the original reference photo you can see how I didn’t quite get the skull extension right but also just how much texture and values there is on the skull, much of which I ignored. Instead I just tried to concentrate on the planes in the skull.
Overall, I think there is some progress though it is feels much slower than pencil.
Digital Drawing
During this month also I’ve been using the pen display and getting used the pen and drawing lines. The line drawings have been ok, they don’t look too bad but the best of those that I’ve done, is the one where I didn’t just draw over lines but added something extra (cross-hatching).
Whilst I think I will continue this path this month but I can feel myself getting closer to wanting to do more whether it is cross-hatching (which doesn’t feel like the best use of that technique for flat surfaces of a building) or using colour, I’m not sure. It will be the thought for July onwards.