I have a collection of various bones from animals in my studio. Mostly found in the desert or given to me by friends. This project is of deer antlers that I found in the desert near Oracle, AZ some years ago. The drawing time is about 1 hour.
The supplies used were black, white and sepia charcoal. Below you can see also included a sandpaper block, a sharpener, and my black charcoal 4B pencil, and the Cretacolor sepia and white charcoals in pencil holders.
I start out by laying down a medium value charcoal “ground” on the Stonehenge paper. Then a contour line drawing of the antlers is sketched in. I use the sepia (earth red) stick first, as the middle value (darkness).
After I’ve pulled out some of the light shapes with a kneaded eraser, I’m going to create darker values by bringing in the black, and blending with the sepia.
A little more detail of the ridges and the beautiful light and dark shapes emerge. I also use a blending stump to smooth out some of the value transitions.
This technique will be practiced in the upcoming September (2 day class) Drawing/All Levels class: Focus on Black, White and Sepia tonal Renderings: 9/11 and 9/18 (9am – noon). (Click on link for full description and registration information.)
