Charcoal Drawing

Friday I decided to actually start drawing. I originally started a sketch blog but I have since decided that a purely drawing blog is not likely to work for me, too many specialized blogs, and I put a few doodlings, material tests and technique things in there more for future reference as charcoal (my medium of choice) tends to smudge easily.

Anyway, here is my first attempt at a portrait from a picture reference, charcoal on paper.

This was just an image off of the internet so I have no idea who it might be. I intentionally left off one eye as I ended up with some marks on the page which would have been right in the white of the eye... and I liked this image as there was no hair in the picture (she was wearing a head wrap of some sort)... I've never attempted hair so I am not sure how it would turn out. As I was filling in shadows (which I still should work on more) I realized how touched up the JPG was as there were lighting affects which were next to impossible. Also the printed copy loses all contrast graduation in the darker areas.

I now see a line on her back that I didn't notice before too. I may come back and redo the entire drawing some time and use some techniques that I figured out part way through. This would both speed up the process and probably make the final product look more natural.

Jeff.