I've been photographing, with varying levels of success, my old drawings, just to keep an archive. I want to use this to catalogue where I've been going wrong, or what needs practice, or what materials I think I've been able to work well with. This drawing was the first I did after buying a set of Derwent charcoal pencils, from a reference photograph of Jessica Chastain by Ellen Von Unsworth. I wanted something striking in contrast, and I really loved this composition. These are very much personal experiments; as much as I enjoy doing these, the aim is to use them as warm ups for creating my own images from scratch. Using a reference photograph so closely is great for honing accuracy, but it's pretty limiting, like colouring within the lines (except that I pretty much never use colour).
Derwent charcoal pencils (dark, medium, light) on paper (approx A4)
While I'm happy with this, and I like the way the charcoal has its own texture which stops it all looking too soft and overworked, I can see a lot of room for improvement. But the charcoal handles the high contrast drop off to full black shadow better than either coloured pencils of graphite could. For this kind of 'film noir' look, it's the ideal medium. It even has the look of aged film grain.
