Book 4 - Charcoal
Until recently, my charcoal game was awful, really undeveloped.
Below you can see my last attempt (A) to use willow charcoal (when I was sixteen).
Feeling defeated, I set the charcoal aside and refused to have anything to do with it.
Book 4 is still in its early days, but things are off to a strong start. There will be casts! There will be trial and error! There will be lots, and lots of Demon Doors!
Charcoal doesn't need to be chaotic or feel too daunting to master. It can be incredibly rewarding to use; after some study, you may come find it is your new favourite medium.
The Challenge
Although still a work in progress, (B) is the point I reached after two months of experimentation and practice. It wasn't easy but I think progress was made. If it is possible to get here in two months, just think where we might be after a year!
Now, at forty-one years old, I have finally gathered the nerve to face this boss. I’m not going to spend years mastering it... hell no! I'm a dad, with no time to do anything anymore! In fact, I’m giving myself just two months to conquer it.
And if I can, you can too.
Foolishness!?
This will be the first book I have written where I begin knowing nothing about the medium (other than it is powdery, chaotic, messy, maddening and... you get the picture).
Over the course of the DLAB 4 chapters, the goal will be to record my experience when trying to handle this (initially) unwieldy material... as a newb.
Achievements, along with all the pitfalls and errors that I make will be included so that maybe, you can plot a more efficient course to get to the top of this particular creative mountain.
The Caproni Collection
As with every tool I recommend in the Draw Like a Boss books, there’s no sponsorship involved. If I praise a company, it’s because they’ve genuinely earned it. With that said, I’m proud to mention that all the busts and sculpture references featured in Draw Like a Boss come from the Caproni Collection, a studio with a direct link to the golden age of cast making.
They are expert at what they do and if you manage to get a hold of one of their sculptures, you will find them to be incredibly effective teachers in their own right.
And what makes them so special? Well, over a century ago, the master craftsman Pietro Caproni was granted permission by major European museums, including the Louvre, the Accademia, and the British Museum, to make molds directly from their original masterpieces.
Using modern molds taken from the most antique and accurate Caproni casts, the Caproni studio has continued to reproduce the world’s greatest sculptures with remarkable accuracy. The casts you can see on their website descend from Caproni’s original molds. They carry the same precision, weight, and beauty as the works that inspired them, the kind of timeless forms every artist should study from life.
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