WIPS
You may remember this scene from "[[Modern Times (film)|Modern Times]]"?
Well I decided to create a large drawing of Charlie Chaplin. I chose this theme for a couple of reasons:
- I love doing the metal surfaces,
- Charlie is a local hero here in Switzerland and
- I have a good feeling about how it will turn out.
This is a first for me because I will be using a 220 gms [[iso 216| B2 paper size 50cm x 70cm]]. I received several pieces of this paper from a friend. Here is a photo of my drafting table to give you an idea of the size if you are not familiar with it.
I have finished the sketch and have started to draw the top left corner. It has taken around 4 hours to get this far. I estimate that this drawing is going to take around 60 hours to complete. So if you are following along just to the end you should see quite a few updates. I'll try to explain my techniques and challenges as I progress.
As you can see from this update, I have started the pants and part of the large cogged wheel. I'll need to refine it, but it's good to see things are taking shape. I cropped the image so you could see more detail. Unfortunately there is some discoloration from the unnatural lighting when I took the photo. I will take the next photo in sunlight so you can get a better look at the tonal values. For now I have all the tonal values that I will use through out the drawing. This will help for the rest.
I used 2B on the pants and blended a bit with F and 4H. The Cog is 2B and 4H. I used a chamois cloth to blend the cog. The triangular part of the cog on the bottom is charcoal that I went over with the chamois cloth.
Here is the second update but I was lucky to be able to do it without tossing the whole drawing.
I was messin' around in the studio and by accident some putty glue sticky stuff fell on the drawing. After a 2 minute swearing session I had a look at the demage. It wasn't too bad. Most of it fell in an area that I was going to apply charcoal to so it will cover. So it turned out that there were just two areas that I needed a solution for. On the right arm between the elbow and the wrist and on the cog to the right of the right bicep.
What I decided to do is make everything a little dirtier. I added some grease marks to the arm and to the cog and it covered the damaged paper very well.
Now I have to put the drawing aside for a few days because I'm tired of working on it. The next step is the face. I don't want to have any concentration problems when I do that. Maybe I'll do some sketching and then come back to it. Or then again maybe I'll feel different tomorrow? All I know is that if I have it in my head that I don't want to draw and I draw anyway, I can be sure that I will make a mistake. I always need to remind myself to take those breaks.
So back to the drawing. I filled in those dark areas with charcoal, finished off the pants (blended with F and pulled some light spots with an eraser), and pretty much completed the shirt (4H), arm (4H and F) and wrench(2B, 4H and F) any blending I did I used the chamois cloth.
By the way I love charcoal. I don't know why I don't use it more. Saturday I'm going to go out and get some frisket film and do some experimenting. I saw how JD Hillberry uses it and always wanted to try his tutorial.
Still bad lighting for the picture. The top left corner shows nothing but reflection. We should have some good weather for next week so I can get a shot in the sun.
So I managed to get back to the drawing. I moved down to the face. It's not done but it gives me some idea of how it is going to look. In the films the faces always seemed a bit white. Certainly due to the way they needed to use make-up. I think I'll give Charlie some color though. It's going to take some trial and error to get the expression in the eyes. They need to be much darker. I'm blocking a bit on the eyes for the moment so I'm going to move on to the upper right corner and come back to the face later.
I hatched the face with an F lead and then lightly blended with a chamois cloth. When I come back to the face I'll use a 2B to hatch in some shadows and with a very light touch blend it with a stump.
You may also notice that I added some highlights up top in the dark area of charcoal to bring out the spokes of the wheel.
That's it for this update, I'll try to get back before the end of the week with another update. For all of you following, don't work too hard and spend more time drawing.
Down to the wire on this one!
At this stage of the drawing, you might think that it is done; but there are still quite a few refinements to work on. Such as: The top left right hand corner, Charlie's left palm, adding more character to the face, getting more depth in the hair, adding more contrast to areas around the machine to give it a more 3D look, and last but by far not the least, sign it.
The final touches have been to go over the drawing and darken it up a bit to give it better contrast. I then waited for the sun to come out and took this photo. I'm happy with the drawing and I have framed it and it is now hanging in our living room over the sofa.
In summary:
Paper B2 (50cm x 70cm - 20in X 28in) 220 gsm bristol
Charcoal was used for all the very deep black areas around the machine
Caran d'Ache Graphite grades 2mm 4H, F, 2B and 3mm 6B were used through out the drawing.
The sketch time was 6 hours and the rendering was 45 hours. I saved a bit of time using the charcoal.
I hope you found this WIP interesting and I hope to share more with you in the furture.
