Saturday, October 25, 2008

U

More dribbling tripe out of my left hand. This is a follow up to the first technique study, I. It is of my daughter's eye. Yes, it follows up on my current obsession with eyeballs.

Derwent 9H to 9B on Canson 80 pound pure white extra fine.

This is obviously not intended as art[1] as should be evident with the hideous composition. Random thoughts off hand:
  1. Scanning graphite is a complete pain in the biscuit. Graphite is hideously reflective and, as such, when a light is directly above it, it reflects pure white. Obviously this is the sole way a flatbed scanner can scan. When the light hits the texture of the paper at strange angles, you get a sparkled result in the scan. This is extremely noticeable in the other work's quickie scan. This one I exerted a little more twiddling on to try and get rid of the reflective sharp highlights in the soft B pencil zones.
  2. I'm not entirely happy with the soft B darks. The main issue is that the paper grabs the softs unlike the hards and hybrids as a result of reduced clay content, leaving a very blobby result. The hards and hybrids have enough clay density to travel through the paper textures and leave a far smoother rendition. I have seen some amazing works using ground carbon to smooth those transitions, and as such, the next technique study will be using ground graphite.
  3. Next project will make heavier use of blending stumps.
  4. It is darn tough fighting boredom when doing the painful and meticulous pencil scale. I'd guess that a musician feels the same way practicing musical scales and riffs. It's just plain tedium.
Thanks for viewing. I am, again, but the sum of your clicks.

1. I have no clue what art is. I wish I did. In fact, I'd make a case that we would be without the vast majority of 'art' if artists didn't continually smash the question "What is art?" in every movement.

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