SO WORTH THE MESS & CLEAN-UP

3/4 CHARCOAL PORTRAIT

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

charcoal & eraser

The students always surprise themselves with how well their pieces turn out 

when they use this reductive process.

And it's so simple and requires very little tools.

Basically they coat an entire sheet of good drawing paper with a charcoal stick,

then using a Kleenex,

they gently blend it all together so the entire piece of paper is a solid black.

Next up is erasing out their image.

The more they erase in one area the lighter the values become

so it's a great way to lead into light and shadow.

The pieces are usually quite striking when done.

Let's see.

This first fabulous work was done by senior Christian Balbido.

Loved the relaxed and emotive pose of the photograph he brought in to work from.

Terrific diagonals lead your eye thru the piece but not off it.

In this next beauty by senior Tiffany Chen,

she has chosen to come back over top her contour edges with a charcoal pencil to tighten them up

which gives this piece a sharper in focus look.

What all of them have in common is that they had to pick a photo with a 3/4 view,

a very difficult pose to draw the head in.

Senior Sarah Oh has chosen a timely topic to work in which is suicide.

The kids learned in the Beginning 2-D class that there are 3 main parts to a work of art;

the subject, the form and the content or message,

the content/message being the most important of the 3.

And even though her message was upsetting,

the skill with which she executed this was outstanding.

William Tan,

now an Architecture Major at Cal Poly Pomona,

(both my son & daughter's Alma Mater),

has chosen a complex subject to draw because of the age of the face.

The middle aged face is tricky because lines are just starting to develop

as well as gowls and bigger bags under the eyes.

So William was forced to put in a lot more attention to detail to be able to pull off this face.

(Sorry about the color William,

 I couldn't get it to go from Sepia to grays & black on my computer).

And lastly we have senior Mary Kim who picked the hardest photo of all,

this elderly couple.

But man oh an did she nail them!

I think the head and facial hair are especially wonderful

as well as her range of values and craftsmanship.

A remarkable work Mary.