Charcoal

This week is a bit of a different format. I lost my voice due to a cold so you’ll have to do some reading instead of listening. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short.

Rather than providing a history of charcoal art, something I am rather unfamiliar with, I’m going to share with you my process. My wife’s main form of art expression is with charcoal and she is extremely gifted. You might have guessed by now but I don’t do much other than blackline illustrating, whether it be in the form of traditional artwork or perspective illustrating; I like my solid lines. She eventually got through to me and I decided to go an extremely traditional route and use charcoal to shade an American Traditional pen and ink drawing of a snake with some swords titled “amour.” My inspiration for this piece was a quote from Francois Mauriac’s Vipers’ Tangle: “…this tangle of vipers that it is impossible to separate, that needs to be cut loose with a slash of a knife, with the stroke of the sword.” I recognize a tangle of vipers likely refers to more than one snake, but let’s not focus on semantics.

After the pen and ink illustration portion I coffee stained my piece, which I later learned is best to do with tea. Apparently coffee is too acidic and will eat away most papers after some time (and we drink this stuff?). Noted for next time. Finally, I used my wife’s variety of charcoals and a smudging tool to get a good grade in the shading. I threw it in a frame and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope you enjoy the little video with one of my favourite tunes!