Studio Notes and Reflections
Some Secret Tips from Secret Beauty
Prepatory Under-Drawing in Vine Charcoal
- The advantages of working ‘larger’. The Secret Beauty composition is 30” high and 40” wide. The size came about because I don’t like drawing shapes that are very small; by ‘very small’ I mean a cactus pad that let’s say is less than 3 inches high. I cannot get the details I want in a form working a great deal smaller. Working smaller means ‘simplifying’ the form, and contrary to the adage of ‘putting down the basic shape’---I want to put down everything I can detect.
- Vine Charcoal is wonderful. When you die and go to heaven, be sure you bring your vine charcoal. You’ll never be happy in heaven without it.
Vine charcoal is soft and malleable. You can get very great darks, you can easily smear it, move it with a chamois cloth, erase it for a highlight, or just erase it completely from existence. It is ideal for drawing a line smoothly and effortlessly across a highly textured surface. A harder stick of anything will bump and totter along.
- Fixative for Charcoal. Write this down. The hands down best fixative for ‘fixing’ your charcoal or pencil drawing is Sennelier’s Delacroix Fixative for Pencil & Charcoal. Don’t mix it up with or use Sennelier’s Latour Fixative for Soft Pastel. Read the labeling on the can. This is a great fixative that allows you to work with impunity over the charcoal under-drawing.
- Pastel Grounds can be thought of as Strata. Let’s say you made a mistake with the background color of your panel. Maybe you put down a lot of lavender pastel and some green pastel, and you discover that your inner child needs the background to be a stark warm white. You fix the surface, but you are going to ‘eat up’ all your Diane Townsend white pastel just getting all this area white. What to do?
Add another layer of ground. That is the answer. But you don’t have any ground left you say, and besides, that ground was grey and why put dark ground down when you want it white? The thing to do is to put down thin ground that will keep the tooth, keep the pattern of the first layer of ground, and cover up the now hated lavender color.
Painting ground that is fairly wet over pastel creates another fresh layer, or strata, of ground. It will bind with the ground beneath the pastel.
Above you can see where I've begun painting white ground on the upper left corner of the panel on top of the existing pastel. - Liquitex Clear Gesso is a wonderful product.
Pour about a half cup of Liquitex Clear Gesso into a pop top plastic container.
Note: When mixing grounds, use a container that is plastic, not glass, and has a tight-fitting lid that does NOT screw on. I call these types of lids ‘pop top,’ and they can be purchased cheaply at any grocery store.You can avoid a stuck lid you cannot remove easily using this type of container.
- To Keep the Tooth. Add about two tablespoons of 4F pumice with two tablespoons of white acrylic paint. Add enough distilled water to make it have a thick, but flowing consistency. Paint it on in the same manner that you applied the first layer of ground.
Let it dry completely.
You are ready to go.
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