Big Sam In Charcoal

It’s hard to go wrong with a Big Sam portrait and on all my previous attempts I’ve managed to put down a good freehand outline.  Today, though, I kind of used a grid.  Only kind of because rather than marking out the whole grid I only marked the cross points at which four squares meet.  I was marking out and putting down outlines with an orange coloured pencil, one of the recommendations in Nathan’s book.

The big recommendation I got from Nathan’s book was to start with big first order shapes, so to start by giving Sam’s head the sort of shading needed for a giant egg before thinking about dents for eyes and a sticky out bit for a nose, etc.  I didn’t do this but at least started out with second order shapes and ignored third order or smaller.  So I used the big watercolour blocks to put down all the biggest blues without worrying about all the details in the facial features.  It took me a long time to get to something I was happy with, putting down layer after layer and  hoovering up all the dust in between.  But as things started to come together it dawned on me that this is probably what we’re supposed to do with charcoal.  Put down layer after layer and watch things slowly come together.  Things are starting to chime.

Once that was all down, I moved on to third order stuff.  I used the charcoal pencils to put down lots of details in the eyes, nose, mouth and ears and to draw in a few individual hairs.  I also used the charcoal blocks a bit more to refine my second order stuff whenever the third order stuff on top of it made it look wrong.

At some point during the third order drawing I noticed that something seemed off and decided that I needed to move Sam’s mouth upwards a little bit.  Even then, things weren’t right and I found myself having to widen Sam’s mouth on his right, our left.  It’s interesting that these corrections don’t really show up in the final painting – charcoal can be very forgiving.

Right at the very end, one of Sam’s jowls didn’t look right.  I managed to correct this without using charcoal – just a sweep of the finger was enough to correct it.

I learned some big lessons today.  I now understand that charcoal paintings are about applying far more layers that I ever do with other media.  I also now know that charcoal great for portraits.  I know it’s very forgiving if I have to correct errors,  I’ve experienced the switch between drawing second order shapes with blocks and third and fourth order shapes with charcoal pencils.  And finally I’ve come to the conclusion that charcoal is a summer medium.  I have to regularly head outside to wash my hands and I should be fixing the colours outside with a spray when I’m done.  These things don’t really happen when it’s snowing outside.  Still, charcoal will dovetail nicely with oil pastels, which are too soft and melty to be used in the summer.  So that’s a result.

As for the portrait, I can see a likeness there, although there’s also a bit of Guus Hiddink coming through.  And it’s annoying how the highlighted bit below Sam’s right eye looks like part of an oversized eye.  It’s possible that this feels more Sam to me than to other people because I’m noticing a weird thing about portraiture and it’s that the better you get, the more you look deep into the subject and the more you feel a connection.  I’m 100% feeling Big Sam coming through.  He’s up for sale.