Friday, March 25, 2011

Greeting the Sun

I recently purchased a pad of Hahnemuhle velour paper to continue to experiment with it. The pad is 9.4" x 12.6" and comes with one sheet of each of ten colors. There are mostly earth tones, which is great for animal drawings. I pulled out this black and thought the white rooster (from a local farm) would contrast well, looking like he's stepping out of the coop in the early morning. It was pretty hard getting the bright white such as on his chest, needing several layers.

I have used different kinds of black paper with my white charcoal, such as Strathmore's charcoal paper and Artagain paper, but they never seemed as black as they could be. This paper, by contrast, was black. I don't know if it's the texture of the surface, with the tiny fibers scattering light, but this is definitely the blackest black paper I have used.

I'm not convinced this is the best photograph I can get of the rooster. It is hard photographing black and keeping it black while retaining the vibrancy of the rest of the work. If I can get a better photo I will offer prints.

Highlander


It's hard to believe it has been a month since my last post. I've been sick and had two sick kids, then my computer's video card fried and I had no access to the computer for nearly a week until I got a new one. But in the meantime, I did finish the Highland bull as well as another, smaller pastel painting of a rooster. This painting is the same size as the jaguar, roughly 25"x19". I do love those horns.

Prints