SUNDAY WORKSHOP - October 19th, Charcoal, Landscape, Negotiation of an image.

In this workshop we'll be working with charcoal and a landscape image. It will be a process of negotiation with the charcoal, starting with a mid-tone smudge of charcoal across the whole page and working in with a good eraser before continuing with more charcoal and charcoal pencil. Above you can see my journey through the process. Below is the lesson plan for the day.

Sunday workshop, October 19^th, Pimperne Village Hall – charcoal, landscape, negotiation of an image.

You’ll need:

·         good cartridge paper at least A4 (and even bigger could be better!)

·         charcoal sticks, a soft rag (old vests are good)

·         a couple of really good erasers.

It would be helpful to have:

·         a good, soft charcoal pencil (cheap ones are useless – they don’t hold the charcoal when you sharpen them. Conte are the best)

·         a soft paint brush or soft decorator’s brush.

·         a black and white landscape image with good contrast – although I’ll have images for everyone so don’t worry if you don’t find one.

This is what you’re going to do:

·         with a piece of charcoal about 2 to 3 cms long, using it on its side, cover your paper (leaving a small margin of white around the edge) in charcoal then gently smooth it with your soft cloth to an even tone.

·         take your eraser and very loosely rub out the general light places.

·         back again with your charcoal, and again on its side, draw in the darker areas. Don’t worry if you go too far – you’re going to use your eraser again to work back into the charcoal.

·         you can smudge and erase as much as you like. Make this the negotiation – in with the eraser, back in with the charcoal and so on.

·         Finally, if you have a charcoal pencil, you can work back into the drawing with more detail, still using  your eraser to rub out when you go too far.

You can see how the drawing evolves through the process described above. Give your drawing time before expecting too much from it!

Bring another medium with you (ideally watercolours) to work with – you might have time to make a piece of work from this drawing (not from the photograph!). This drawing is part of an editing process, it casts away anything from the photo that you don’t want and is a perfect ‘working’ drawing for the next stage.

Next workshops: November 9^th, December 7^th, January 18^th.