Although keeping things simplistic, I really wanted to move beyond the very basic designs I had been doing. I turned to: https://drawinglessonsfortheyoungartist.blogspot.it/2012/05/how-to-draw-garden-lamp-post.html
Here are the pencil and pen renditions. For quick-sketch style, I can live with the results. They need polish, though.
This was a lot of fun, but I learned something unexpected. Since I’m working at trying my hand at new mediums (pen and charcoal), I’ve been nervous about the un-erasability factor. As such, I figured pen would do me in. Although you can’t erase charcoal, you can smudge/blend it to help cover errors…or so I thought.
This is the fourth charcoal attempt, and I had to “cheat” a little.
The bluntness of charcoal is really giving me some trouble. I even tried using my easel and holding the stick (and my arm) several different ways, and it was just a chunk, blocky mess.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen GORGEOUS blocky/chunky charcoal drawings. Some can be found here: https://themilkmangoestocollege.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/p89-angular-perspective/
Mine was not gorgeous.
Free-sketching just isn’t working for me on stick charcoal. I won’t give up, but I did have to get out my charcoal pencils. I can manipulate them better, so I did a base free sketch with that, then went over it with a medium charcoal stick.
