Ashes to Ashes, Carbon to Dust

Hi everyone! I wanted to keep this blog to show what I am up to at school (and my art in general) for the next couple years.

Well, I recently finished up the first project for my graduate program in Medical Illustration. For the first 2 weeks we worked on the traditional Hopkins initiation assignment, which is the drawing of a hip bone using carbon dust. To start the project I hung my assigned hip bone in front of a gray piece of paper and lit it how I wanted with a desk lamp. Next to the set up I taped a piece of paper and, while keeping my head directly in between the bone and the drawing, I compared proportions until I ended up with a drawing that represented my exact view of the bone set up. I had never drawn with such a strict viewpoint before, and wouldn't have considered it if it hadn't been required for the project, but it worked pretty reliably.


Once the proportional sketch was done, I used a light-box to transfer it to nicer charcoal paper. Then I started with the carbon dust. With a broad paintbrush I built up thin layers of gray with the carbon until it approximately matched the tone of the background paper behind the bone. From there on, I used increasingly smaller brushes to work out the volumes of the bone and to define the value of the shadows and body, and I pulled out highlights with erasers, and smoothed tone with a chamois. After a lot of work and sore eyes, I ended up with the piece below (approximately 11.5" x 16.5"):



Drawing with carbon dust was a new process for me, but it basically felt like I was painting the entire time, even though it was with dry media, which was neat. It reminded me (in a refreshing way) of some early assignments at I had in undergrad. I am happy with how the piece came out, and I am hoping to do more drawings using this technique when I get a chance. However I will note that this drawing is nothing like the majority of projects I will be doing. This was an exercise in pure observation.

Soon I will be starting up Anatomy and a couple of other medical classes, so it will be a while before I get to upload new school projects, but I'll hopefully have some personal pieces in the works in the meantime.