Mark Ferguson

3 hour pose, pencil

3 hour pose, charcoal

Wish I Used Washi Tape

Charcoal, 3 hour Pose

French artist Alexandra drew with the PTA before my time. She made wonderful drawings of portraits using washi tape. (Check out Larry Zuzik's colorful washi tape drawing of her through Tim Herron's facebook page or my Pinterest Designerly art/ paintings board.) Being in town visiting relatives, she agreed to pose for us. PTA artists pay the model with our drawings. If she takes this drawing home to Paris, I can officially say that my work is in a European collection! ha ha, lol!

water soluble graphite

water soluble graphite - 45 and 30 minute sketches

I finally experimented with water soluble graphite in my attempt to loosen up my style. I've had this Lyra graphite stick for some time and never tried using it as a wash. It was easy to use. I could draw with it like a pencil or rub it with a wet paintbrush to get a gray tone. I recently purchased a pan of ArtGraf watercolor graphite and will soon give it a try.

I definitely need to use larger brushes - maybe a large sumi brush. I find myself still wanting to noodle in the details. I'd like to find a balance between capturing a likeness and achieving meaningful marks with an aesthetic appeal. The portrait on the top left most resembles the model.

Revised painting

I finished the revision shortly after I painted the original version. I like that it has more distinct forms. Perhaps I need to think a bit more about composition before I start painting. Part of me wants to dive right in when I'm outdoors.  After all, the light changes so quickly. Yet, a few sketches beforehand would help clarify the composition of what I want to paint.

Know Your Medium

3 hour pose, Nitram charcoal

I'm starting to notice that my charcoal has some sort of residue. I guess I  overlooked it before, but now it is quite apparent. When I press hard with my Nitram stick and wipe away the black charcoal, I notice a remaining brownish tone on the paper. I tested someone else's sticks and got the same results. It's OK if I leave a heavy application of charcoal, but if I want to do any type of erasing in technique, the brown stays. I'm not sure if this is inherent with Nitram or I need to find a way to work around this limitation. Time to hunt up some information and reviews.

Lovely Luna

During a break from drawing Kathryn (below), parents of this three-year old sat little Luna down for a 15 minute pose. She really could not sit still - squirming around like a typical toddler, but I managed to get this pencil drawing on the second try.