Wax Bloom

A bit more detail on the left side of the canvas, starting on to his other eye.

Lincoln | Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Ill. Board | 8 x 10″ 

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After finishing Clara, Profile, I wanted to try another Carbon Pencil drawing, but one with substantially more contrast.  All of the pieces I have lined up are begging to be done in colored pencil, though so I thought I’d try a historical figure. 

 Can you tell who it is yet?

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Took nearly forever to finish, but here it is.

Clara, Profile | Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Ill. Board | 8 x 10″ 

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With her dress and some of her hand blocked in:

Clara, Profile | Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Ill. Board | 8 x 10″ 

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I haven’t been able to catch much of a break to work on this, but here’s an update that combines the work of several 15 to 30 minute sessions I’ve been able to squeeze in over the last week.

Clara, Profile | Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Ill. Board | 8 x 10″ 

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Minor update over lunch; getting started on her face:

Clara, Profile | Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Ill. Board | 8 x 10″ 

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40 minutes of progress squeezed in this morning before work:

Clara, Profile, Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Ill. Board, 8 x 10″ 

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Feeling pretty good about the hair – maybe I should always start with hair…

Clara, Profile, Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Board, 8 x 10″ 

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Just shy of a month since I started a new drawing…phew. Work has been pretty busy – I switched teams about a month ago to work on the new AIM Express client, so getting up to speed, adding new features and fixing bugs on the product has taken up just about all of my time. We launched Beta 2 of the app this past week – give it a try and let me know what you think!

A few months back I ordered some Carbon Pencils – I had read about them on someone’s blog, but I can’t remember who it was now – it might even have been a thread on Wet Canvas. At any rate, it was specifically about how that artist was able to get such vivid blacks without the reflection that comes with graphite, and how smooth the carbon pencils laid down on paper. Sounded interesting, so I thought I’d give them a go:

Clara, Profile, Carbon Pencil on Cold Press Illustration Board, 8 x10″

These pencils are very nice, to be sure. The blacks are incredibly rich, they blend really well and they don’t reflect like graphite does. They are a bit messy, like charcoal, and its odd for me to force myself to work from top left and down to prevent smudging, but so far so good I think.

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