Carbonised

 Following on from my last post, here's the first of my carbon and charcoal experiments.

 

I've worked with both kinds of pencil before but never as two distinct elements in the same image - which is why I started with the small version :)

I used carbon pencil for the cat in the foreground to give me a soft black and the fuzzy edges. One of the things I liked about the photograph I was working from was the fact it was the crows in the background that were in sharp focus.

I used sharp charcoal for the wonderfully distinctive crows so that even on such a tiny scale- the whole thing is only 3 x 4 inches- I could get a really crisp outline and feather texture. This one is already on sale here -next up, I'm trying a larger version using the same materials. Will keep you posted ;)

Cat amongst the....

...crows in this case :) While I'm still settling into my new pad here in Scarborough I've pulled out some of my favourite photos to work on. That had to include this glorious out-take from last years crow sessions.

I'm thinking of using my new favourite pencils, Wolffs carbon, for the cat as it is a fantastic velvety black and slightly softer so it should give me the fuzzy focus I'm after. The crows will be picked out in charcoal to give a harder edge and, believe it or not, a different kind of black :)

I'm also tempted to do this in two sizes- 3 x 4" and 6 x 8" partly because I like working in miniature and partly because I think a smaller version would work well with the exisiting crow drawings already on sale in my Etsy store.

I'm hoping to be working on this at the weekend- will keep you posted :)