My Jackson’s order finally made it through yesterday so I was almost ready to start…
Looking For Source Material For Charcoal
I’m still not painting today. I want my next piece of art to be charcoal based after reading the Kate Boucher book. I don’t even want to read another art book before I’ve had a chance to put some of Kate’s ideas into practice. And I can’t get started until I’ve got all my charcoal gear together and swatched colours. And getting all my gear together doesn’t just mean waiting for a delivery to arrive – I’m also planning in heading to the shops and maybe adding another four colours to my set of charcoal pencils. Maybe even a brush to clear charcoal specs from the paper. Or even more paper with a different texture. But before I hit the shops I want to check out the paper and pencil case that I’ve ordered, so I’m still in limbo.
Charcoal’s definitely on my mind though. So when I went for my daily four mile walk today I took along my phone to take photos that could serve as source material for the charcoal pencils. And I’ve shocked myself a little bit. Maybe it’s Kate Boucher’s influence but I found myself not taking photos of sweeping landscape vistas but instead snapping forgotten decaying corners that nobody ever looks at and lots of views that included signposts or telephone wires. Most of my artwork is pretty colourful but I can already tell my charcoal work is going to be sparse, grim, dusty and brutal. It’s going to stick out like Nebraska or Tom Joad in a Bruce Springsteen album collection.
I’m so looking forward to getting started.
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