Charcoal Drawings

Charcoal Drawings




This is the first task we were given when starting college. Drawing natural forms from life as well as our own drawings using charcoal and chalk. I started with the spindly 'flower bomb' drawing referenced by a physical flower on the table. I have always struggled drawing from life as I can never quite get the dimensions looking right so I thought choosing a flower with lots of straight lines was my best bet. 


Although I'm not completely happy with this one, I like how I layered the white chalk over the charcoal as it helped add definition so the very 2D looking plant., next time I'd like to make the seed pods look more complete and 3D, and add more 'leaves' of pods to make it look busier and more eye-catching.

I then tried adding a generic branch of leaves in the corner.


I really liked these as they were quick and easy to produce, but by adding more leaves I could make it look more busy and realistic. I did however like the shading created by blending the charcoal and chalk together as well as overlapping the leaves.

Next was the potted plant.

At this point I was interested in creating a piece that could work as a 'stand alone' so I thought I plotted plant could work. I'm not sure of the name of this plant, but I had found a random picture online that I found as a reference. I really like this one as I think I managed to show the bends and folds of the leaves and stem  quite well. Although I couldn't quite make the pot look perfect (due to the charcoal smudging and not being good at proportions), I think it blends in quite well with the plant and the surrounding plants.

I then tried to create a lily.


I have never tried to draw a lily before and I think this is evident in the piece. I struggled a lot trying to show where the leaves ended, or where the shadows darkened. I think with another media like pencils I make be able to differentiate a lot better with the two but with charcoal I struggled.
At this point I had a lot of empty space on the paper so I decided to add a few smaller 'filler' pieces just to fill out the blank spaces. 


Heidi Shedlock


Shedlock is a South African, Durban based artist who grew up in a creative family. She taught for a few years before giving up to produce her own work full time. She made a project consisting of 568 small paintings which she produced one a day for 568 consecutive days.


I love this piece, specifically because of how much detail she has managed to show so delicately. 
She has drawn three roses to be the focal point, with lots of smaller, less defined flowers to create a huge bouquet, however she has still kept the clean crisp lines and edges which prevent it from smudging together.





















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