Week Three - Beginning to draw

This week I planned after doing some sketches in my sketchbook to start a drawing on stone, just something experimental to get to grips with the materials and techniques, going forward in the next two weeks.

This is a quick portrait of my brother, in my sketchbook my drawing is more smooth and suggestive of a face, however with the pencil on stone it is hard to get this effect and it became more harsh because to create tone and shape I had to use line. To change this I added a touche wash over the sketch, first using a lighter solution over the whole portrait and then a denser solution which I dabbed over the shadows of the face. I tried to use the touche in such a way that it almost streaks across the face, hopefully so that when printing the face becomes more expressional and fleeting.

I am exploring this idea of a more fleeting portrait, one which focuses on no features in particular as I have been looking at the work of Gerhard Richter, who I have found a particular interest in, in both his technique and thought process.

"Whether drawn from the media or based on family photographs, Richter's source images were intentionally 'banal'. The resulting paintings assert nothing definite, draw attention to no particular facet or feature, and avoid making a specific point. This avoidance tactic deflects the universal human instinct to seek meaning in the appearance of people and things. By frustrating that process, Richter's portraits draw attention to the inscrutable nature of appearance."https://www.npg.org.uk/richter/exhib3.htm

A quote I found above about Richter's paintings is something I would like to take forward and use to inspire my own work.