Recently I read about the aux trois crayons techniques used by artists from the renaissance using the
Materials easily available then – white chalk, sanguine and charcoal. While this wasn’t new to me, since I’ve read about it before, this was the first time that I’ve thought about it seriously. I decided to give it a shot with the materials I had to hand, which is to say, some pastel paper and a little set off Jackson’s brand coloured chalks. Though I thought that I would have to make do with the wrong colours, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the little set had a yellow ochre, sanguine and an actually decent black. The little half stick were chunkier than I could have wished for fine detailed faces, but they’d be good for just about anything else, and despite their cheapness, they offer surprisingly good string colours.
Linked here
I’m not especially proud of this work as it was just a quick sketch to test the medium and technique, which I think it did quite well. With more time taken and better materials, I think this would be a nice medium and technique for just about any application, providing portability and a strong limited palette, but more tonal and warmth options than charcoal or pencil.
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