Tom Waits Portrait

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.

En kop kaffe, tak II

In this image, I have made highlights and more texture with pure white paint. In the Aux Trois Crayons technique, this would be known as ‘heightening’, since white highlights have a tendency to make a shape appear more 3d. Anyway, this white is far too stark for my liking.

Here, I’ve used a glaze of Burnt Sienna to knock back the white. This is one of acrylic paint’s great advantages – drying times and easy dilution. This would have hardly been possible with oils.

I think this painting is pretty much done now, so I’m going to leave it for a few days and see what I think later in the week. Then, it’s off to the Bistro!