CHARCOAL PORTRAIT

Portrait of President Bill Clinton
Charcoal on Illustration Board (20"x16")

Portrait of Arthur Ashe
White Charcoal on Black Illustration Board (20"x16")

Charcoal portrait ( Portrait fusain - French ) becomes a well-recognized media as professional portrait in black and white. Charcoal produces an outstanding effects of gray gradients and lighting rendition effects. The portrait is hand drawn by an artist using charcoal sticks and pencils in a dry brush technique from life or photos.

Charcoal portrait are preliminary visual sketches of classical figure painting of black and white underlayers, giving painting an astonishing effect of portraits to life. The refinement of rough sketches to fine detail tone recreate its own characterictis as a new media. With the use of powdered charcoal and dry brush technique give its soft blends and fine details. Charcoal can draw on canvas, on almost any type of paper, some of the choices are velum and illustration boards, the texture of papers constribute the texture in drawing techniques. To achieve a very realistic look, chiascuro is basic techinique, the application of rendition with the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.

Ross Scotland
Portrait Au Fusain 12”x10”

Denise & Nelson
Charcoal Portait (Portrait Au Fusain 11”x14”)