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AgnesPterry — Chinese Lanterns in Charcoal
Published: 2009-06-02 20:09:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 1474; Favourites: 34; Downloads: 40
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Description
Charcoal pencils, roughly ten hours. Used up most of two pencils, 2B and 6B. All the blending was done with an eraser.I used this picture as a reference [link] by lapoall, who was kind enough to let me use it!
Please critique my work. I'd like to know what you guys think. Click for full view.
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Comments: 21
btw, this is one of those that I had to click the icon view to enlarge it because I couldn't tell for sure that it wasn't b&w photography.
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Hehe! I'll take that as a compliment! :-D
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This is AMAZING. My limited experience in charcoal tells me that it is a very imprecise medium however this is so technical for charcoal...great execution.
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Thanks-- charcoals are pretty imprecise indeed-- I kind of cheated and used charcoal pencils of various hardnesses for most of this instead of actual charcoal sticks. They're considerably darker and easier to manipulate on the smaller scale, although I love charcoal sticks as well. I like getting my hands messy: that's one of the great things about soft pastels too. :-D
This drawing wasn't nearly as tactile as something drawn in pastel or charcoal sticks for me, but I did enjoy doing it quite a bit.
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Hello!! 
~*Crusnik-O2
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Thanks for the feature, I appreciate it very much!
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It seems a bit grainy, but I'm not sure if that's a consequence of scanning/picturing and putting it up on the internet. The central lantern is exceptional, but the edges of the piece are less finished.
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the grainy-ness is probably due to the paper texture more than anything else I THINK. As for edges, yeah, I can see that. I have a hard time usually making the edges be as neat as the rest of a drawing, but I did also want to show a bit of light coming through on the right side-- I guess I could have portrayed it better. 
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I'm not sure if this is doable now, but if the images at the edges had faded--like the start of a dissolve--it might look better. Just a thought and I'm not sure if I can even explain what I mean well.
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First thing I noticed were the soft textures, and the highlights which gives this great depth.
The bottom right was hard to work out, but since the ref photo was also blurred, I can understand why you used the fuzzy effect, but the lantern directly behind the fore lantern looks flat.
I like how you made the bottom right forelantern dark as well as the one in the middle (using the principle you mentioned in my WIP), it drew my eye to the bottom right, then up to the upper left again. Looks like this was hard work, what with those borders and the sun. It's a beautiful drawing, you conveyed the exotic delicacy of the lanterns well.
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Thanks for the wonderful critique, I will keep those things in mind for my next drawing. Whenever it should be done. There's a lot of fur in it which is a newish texture for me, especially at the level of detail I am trying to capture. Gah.
I'm glad that the picture allowed for a good sense of directional movement with the composition. The photo did most of that for me, but I did cut out a little of it, so I was wondering how that would translate.
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Well you did awesome with the shading, strong contrast you have there. It's pretty amazing you kept the highlights and details so well, like the little borders of the lantern that separate each section and the paper-y texture on the plants.
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The Section borders were HARD, especially keeping the rounded look.
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Glad you like it! I'm honored you would allow me to use your photograph. :-D
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Thanks, I'm glad you like it!
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