This series of still life drawings in charcoal, pastel and conte are exercises in value. I set myself to do 100 of these studies (I think I actually only got to 79), in order to develop a greater understanding of value and how to translate light into drawings and paintings.
You might notice that the ones at the top look a lot better than the earlier ones. Of course, this just represents learning and the evolution of my skills and understanding of value.
But there was also a sea-change caused by two developments at around the same time: I worked out a way to use Munsell value chips to judge value when working from life, and I doscovered the work of amazing artist Kate Sammons, who introduced to me the technique of layering chacoal and white chalk, rather like the process of mixing pastells on the surface of a drawing.
The Keys to Colour - Free 6 step email course
Learn how to:
- mix any colour accurately
- see the value of colours
- lighten or darken a colour without messing it up
- paint with subtle, natural colour