Charcoal, Sanguine Crayon, and Chalk: Instruction and exercises for drawing and sketching in three popular artists' media

Rating:
Summary: Some keyword demonstrations
Review: The Charcoal, Sanguine Crayon and Chalk (CSC for short) is a somewhat difficult medium to find learning material on. Most books on pastel or painting mention "redchalk" or "sanguine" merely in passing as a sketching tool. Books on drawing hardly mention it at all. In this respect, this little book is almost unique in that it treats redchalk (drawing with black, sanguine and white chalks) as a subject in its own.

The book is essentially divided in two, where the first part deals with the media and tools needed for working with chalks. The text is some 90 pages long, and the first 25 or so pages are spent on tools, chalks, papers, blending, perspective, sketching etc. Most subjects are treated on two pages with huge pictures and a few lines of text. Of course, no one will learn, say, perspective or scetching from such breaf treatises alone, so the very beginner may want to look elsewhere to get some basic concepts and skills in place.

The last part of the book is devoted to "practical exercises". The exercises are very nice in that they suggest how the painting evolves through the various stages. My previous experince is with pencils and drawing, so I was quite happy to see that the paintings here look quite "bleak" through most of the work; only after the last few finishing touches does the portraits "spring to life". That's the kind of demostrattion that is most valuable for preserving inspiration in an would-be autodidact like myself.

Most of the emphasis on CSC is presented from the painter's point of view. The basic techniques are based on various ways of handling the chalk bars with the objective of making surfaces of color on the paper. No matter if one uses cross hatching or side strokes, once the color is on the paper it is blended with a stump, cloth or brush. The demonstrations clearly show that such techniques can produce stunning results, but I would like to see more of the "drawing" techniques, i.e. lines and cross hatching left in place in the finished work. Painters appear to regard CSC as a fast and efficient tool for preliminary sketches, a tool for some sort of "limited painting". To me, CSC is a form of "extended drawing" that lets me do things and exploit effects the pencil alone does not provide. Unfortunately, this little book does not treat the "drawing aspects" of CSC.

All in all, this book provides great insporation as well as quite a few hints and suggestions about techniques and tricks. Although it leaves a bit to be desired, both on emphasis and in depth of coverage, and thus could be punished quite severely in terms of stars, the important point is that this book is actually available, providing suggestions, tricks and inspiration for trying out Charcoal, Sangune Crayon and Chalk.

Rating:
Summary: a wonderful book!
Review: This book helps you learn the "painterly" way of drawing with the broader dry media. Even though not specifically for pastels, it will help your pastel works.

Rating:
Summary: Some keyword demonstrations
Review: This book helps you learn the "painterly" way of drawing with the broader dry media. Even though not specifically for pastels, it will help your pastel works.