FIRED UP!
I’M EXCITED!!!!
I’m drawing in silver right now and it has a better quality than I’d even imagined. Much like the ballpoint drawing that I’ve been doing recently, it seems to be an unforgiving medium but it has a magical, ethereal quality that can’t be achieved with pencil… and it doesn’t smudge. No toxic sprays are needed to fix it and make it more permanent… it just is what it is. Another cool thing is that over time it tarnishes and turns a beautiful sepia colour. Looking at other drawings that were done ages ago when silverpoint was at its most popular, in the renaissance… it doesn’t lose that luminosity either. Gold point is also a good medium that captures a magical luminosity and definitely inspires an ooooooh and an aaaaah from admirers. **ooooOOOOOooooooooh………. shiiiiiiinnnnnyyy**
I’ve just started a drawing of an old sculpture and am absolutely blown away by the effect that it has…. I’m sure that after doing enough work with this medium I’ll find out why it was pretty much abandoned after the renaissance but as for now…. I am absolutely tickled. I can’t wait to get a gold tip and get cracking on that. The fact that it doesn’t smudge is a huge point for me… lots of pages in my sketchbook are starting to look like muddy and messy clouds of smudgy graphite scribbles… even after spray fixing them.


OOOH!! OOOHH!! LOOK!! It sparkles! hahahahaha
Now….. I was thinking back to my portrait of President Obama recently and had this nagging feeling that it didn’t really look like Obama.. to me it kinda looked more like an African American version of the guy on the MAD Magazine covers…….. (In fact this is a comment a friend of mine left on facebook when I posted the picture to my account.. “The changes made a BIG difference. Less “what, me worry” and more “yes we can”.”) - so I thought I’d have another try and get it done right.
Here’s what I came up with…

Much more happy with this one but still not totally happy….. but hey, you’re always your own worst critic, eh?
Here’s an update of that silverpoint drawing I’m workin on…


I love the effect you get with silverpoint but kind of miss the dramatic light and dark that you can get with graphite….. I think it has something to do with the kind of gesso that you use though and not so much with the silver. So I guess I’ll hafta do some experimenting. There’s another artist from Australia who works primarily in gold and silverpoint, from what I’ve seen – his work is absolutely astounding and he gets very dramatic light and dark tones in his work.
The drawing has a ghostly quality to it that I am really enjoying thanks to that silver… it’s just emerging from the page as the point moves back and forth.