Charcoal exercise by Fiona Phipps

The sketch is fine Fiona, very well done. The mess you are referring to was fingers through blending and rubbing out. 😀

Yes David, I meant there was more charcoal everywhere else other than on the picture! Thank you!

Great exercise Fiona

Great exercise Fiona

It certainly has a spacial sense Fiona. So press on to the goal.

A delightful success with charcoal, Fiona!

A lovely result, though, Fiona! Good tonal work and shapes, which is what charcoal is all about.

Beautiful charcoal, Fiona, lovely reflections not so easy with charcoal.

I think you have done well Fiona, I can imagine how messy this was to do. My exercise with pastels was bad enough but I dread to think how I would cope with charcoal!

Nicely done Fiona, the exercise worked fine....

Really nice result , subtraction work is always messy, have a spare card handy to place over areas and some soap for later. Good exercise though.

Dennis, John, Satu, Seok, Cesare, Margaret, Jim....thank you all very much for your encouraging feedback, really appreciate it. Lol, you've obviously been there Andre....thank you.

I know what you mean Fiona, I did life drawing classes using this technique and I always ended up looking like a chimney sweep! This is a great sketch with good tonal variations. Sounds like a good course you are on.

Looks like hard work Fiona, you've done well!

I turn my back for a little while and this is what you get up to Fiona! What a lovely result, even if you did get more of the charcoal on you than the drawing. This looks very hard to do.

I like your ' mess' The lesson sounds really interesting. I'd love to have lessons but there is little on offer in my area. Diana

You've made a great job of this Fiona. The marble floor or work-surface is especially effective.

Tricky enough exercise and this is very good indeed , again this work is invaluable at learning to distinguish the subtle changes in tone in an image ... excellent

Sorry... not a mess but exactly what I want to acieve when I start with charcoal again, hopefully at a new life class I am trying to get on. A stunner Fiona

Lol Val, thank goodness it's back to pencil next week! Thanks! Thanks very much Louise, Sarah.....yes it's like working back to front, the whole support was the same colour as the bottle, that was the easiest thing to do, much easier than drawing a bottle in!!lol Diana, you definitely do not need lessons....thanks very much. Thanks very much Michael, it was a table top but it did give off a slight reflection of the light areas of the objects. Dermot I hope to learn from it and I hope you can get on a class Derek....thank you both very much.