Drawing Penny on 16/02/10

The first four drawings use conte crayon on A3 white 130gsm cartridge paper. They are 10 minute gesture poses. I find I can work really fast now: no measuring with a pencil at arms length, just a speedy movement of a conte stick on its side over the paper to suggest the principal form, then punching in the highlights followed by the deep shadow tones (for the initial marks on the paper I chose a colour which the model's body as a whole suggests to me). I then add the intermediate tones.

Beforehand, I did select a palette of colours which I believed had tonal relationships, and I stuck with these. The white cartridge paper allows a translucency to each colour, i.e. to varying degrees the white of the paper penetrates through the applied colour. At 130gsm there is a fine texture to the paper, but I would really like to try a very rough, heavily textured 'white' paper.

The third drawing is a frontal study on A2 Fabriano Tiziano 160gsm light grey pastel paper. This was such a contrast to using the white cartridge paper, in that I felt I really had to attack the paper to gain the colour and tonal impact I desired. The characteristic of this paper is that it fights backs and an amazing dialogue is set up between the artist and the 'canvas'. Wow! This is a new experience for me. You will see that the palette of colours is similar to that in the previous quick 10 minute drawings but this time the conte crayons skip lightly on the paper's surface and I bring in a similar colour range of soft pastels to make a louder impact.

In the final piece I moved across the studio to carry out a study of Penny's back, using the same conte and soft pastels but this time on A1 white cartridge paper.

My learning from the day is this: "I have an increased awareness of the complex relationships between 'colour and tone', between 'the drawing medium and the paper', and between 'the artist's perception of an object and the inherent properties of the object itself'. I have now learnt to fully enjoy my day life drawing, whatever the output."