Oncoming Storm

This was a unique drawing for me. I decided to use a new medium: stretched and mounted gallery canvas. It provided some unique challenges because charcoal doesn't really adhere to canvas and because it is stretched any movement can "bounce" charcoal off the surface. I had to use a vacuum much more often. The canvas measures 36 inches by 40 inches meaning it is too large to fit on my table and too wide for my arm to reach or to draw on without distortion. I don't have an easel and charcoal pencils need to be pressed harder than an easel would make possible. I ended up sitting 2 feet from the table and leaning it from my lap onto the edge of the table. It worked. 

I used black and white charcoal with my usual set of erasers, but vinyl and rubber erasers did not really work on the canvas because the texture of the canvas just peels the erasers apart. I had to use rice paper blending stumps to really get the black charcoal into the texture of the canvas. The white charcoal acted more like a chalk and gave the texture a waxy surface filling in the texture more easily and smoothly. I sometimes used that benefit to fill the texture in before applying black charcoal to get a more complete texture. It comes with the negative of having a distinctly lighter shade. It only worked in some cases. The texture of the canvas left an interesting pattern in the finished drawing. It can be seen in the close up photos.

I finished off the drawing with my fixative spray which worked like a miracle. It did not affect the surface at all and yet the charcoal barely moves.