Experiments

I am working on a special project that will require some black and white artwork. Because I love textures so much, I decided to start exploring a graphite rubbing technique which has the feel of childhood art projects.

It is very tactile. I love the relaxing feel of using graphite this way. I was curious whether other dry media would respond as well, so I started to experiment.

These are some of my experiments using charcoal, conte, Sumi ink, water-soluble graphite, colored pencil, and chunks of graphite. The seeds are silver maple keys.

I really liked the vine charcoal. It looks smoky, as you can see in the middle of the above photo.

In the end, I chose colored pencil and graphite mixed together. It is not a straight rubbing technique, since I manipulated the image quite a bit after doing the rubbing, strengthening vein lines and outside edges and adding shadows. I think it retains the textural look.