"Jessie" (Black Labrador, age 12 at time of portrait)
8x9 inches
graphite and charcoal on white velour paper
not for sale, collection of the artist (she's my dog) :-)
This is just a detail view to try to convey the softness of this paper, it's yummy.
Wow, it's a super picture, I love the eyes, you can really feel the life of the dog looking out.
ReplyDeleteDid you find it hard to build up the darks? I have tried velour paper a couple of times with pastel (which isn't really my thing anyway) and found that the color just seems to 'sink', maybe it's just me!
By the way you aren't charging too much for your graphite work, I have just done several graphite pictures for a change and I've found they do take as much time as colored pencil, the only time advantage being you can get rid of mistakes more easily than with colored pencil. (though velour is very unforgiving, once you make a mistake it's almost impossible to get rid of!)
Thanks Emma!
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't too problematic getting areas to go really dark but I think that's probably because I used charcoal in the darkest areas. I haven't tried it with pastel. It definitely did take some pressure to get the color to "fill in" the fuzziness of the paper. As you know it's almost more like drawing on fabric. It is totally unforgiving, can't erase at all on velour. :-)
For me, graphite is just slightly less time consuming than colored pencil (since CP requires layering of color, so more time going over each area). This one actually took longer than estimated. Hmmmm.... now that's a problem.
I can never estimate how long a piece will take, some things just seem to 'click' and take no time at all and others are a series of problems to be solved and take ages!
ReplyDeleteDo you price your pieces according to the time you actually spend on them or by size? I'm never sure which is the best way.
It's a bit of both. For a commissioned piece, I want to give a client a number, not just "it's X per hour and I think this'll take X hours." So commissioned work is always priced per square inch. Having done so many colored pencil drawings, I can usually estimate the time frame within about 30 minutes, so I know that I spend X amount of time per square inch.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't done graphite for a while and I see I may be a little off. But I'm not going to change anything this year.
For non-commissioned stuff, I will often sell it based on actual time spent, rather than by size. It usually comes out about the same, but sometimes slightly more or less depending on the background, etc. But for anything where you need a price up front, price by size (keeping in mind what the media is, how complex your background will be, etc. It can be a bit flexible.)