Wild things

Shells, landscapes, streams and flowers. The shell was done by rubbing the side of a short stick of charcoal across a sheet of brown pastel paper to create the mottled dark brown of the background and the darker mid tones of the shell. I smoothed the charcoal out with the side of my hand, then the highlights were rubbed out with a putty eraser. Thus the first drawing implement used to define form was the eraser.

Next the dark areas of the shell and its shadow were put in using the charcoal in a more controlled way. At this stage the drawing could still be very free, because anything could still be rubbed out.

I usually experience drawing as a struggle with form rather than an instant putting down of the correct mark. Perhaps people who say they can't draw imagine they should be able to put the correct mark down at once, but in fact the effort of making repeated corrections leaves its traces in the drawing and gives it a depth it would not otherwise have. (My theory about the great Chinese painters and calligraphers is that they could put down the correct mark in a moment because they had been struggling with it all their lives.)

The next stage was enhancing the highlights with a white chalk pastel. Where the chalk passes over the charcoal a bluish grey emerges, since the chalk cannot obliterate the charcoal. This produces a pleasing effect, because the coldness of the blue grey balances the warmth of the brown undertone of the paper.

At a certain stage I used fixative on the image, but this rendered the white chalk almost transparent (and almost killed the picture), so it was necessary to re-establish the highlights with white chalk.

All images copyright 2000 Martin Dace

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