The Nightingale’s Garden
Charcoal, Graphite; 5” x 9”
No scanner handy over the weekend, so this scan represents two sessions, about eight hours’ work. Trying to follow, flesh out the bones of the trees I’d sketched earlier seemed an almost certainly dissatisfying path: I wanted to get out of their way and my own, let these trees to be a product of this session, today’s energy and direction. So I began again, fast and loose– Q-Tips loaded with soft charcoal dust, initial shapes and highlights lifted out with kneaded erasers. Details developed with 6B charcoal pencils, softened & sharpened with more kneaded eraser, Dixon Ticonderoga graphite pencils, grades 1-4.
The last session was a Fussing Day– Cleaning up, smoothing out background and mist with a gazillion or minute adjustments. Kneaded erasers shaped to a very fine point, and a Staedtler Mars Lumograph 6H graphite pencil. The Nightingale’s Garden was done in several sessions over 12 days; total working time was about 22 hours.
4 comments:
Thanks for showing your process so completely, Mark. Really fascinating to see how the work evolves.
As always, beautiful stuff...
Thanks, Gary. I've always enjoyed learning about other artists' processes, techniques etc- Whatever the media, something useful or inspiring usually translates. Been awhile since I've posted a WIP; I should probably take time to scan between sessions more often. All the best!
Fabulous. Haunting.
Thanks, Katrina.
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