During this week’s drawing class I used either black ink or willow charcoal to cover the paper with, and then draw back into creating marks of the lighter areas of the model and the negative space. This activity forced me to only use tone and I really enjoyed it because it made me focus on the shapes of the figure, rather than line. These were longer drawings, between 15 and 25 minutes for each.

Medium: graphite on ink.
Medium: willow charcoal on ink.

Drawings with the black ink background. The graphite was particularly difficult to see what marks I was making, which was a fun challenge.

Compressed charcoal on willow charcoal background.
Willow charcoal background worked into with a putty rubber.

My proportion skills are improving a lot and I would like to focus more on tone in the upcoming weeks, as well as the details of the face and hands.