So I recently completed my first ever drawing on Black Paper! (Photo Credit to Edward Davies) When I first saw the photo my brother in law took of his gorgeous cat “Blue”, I was dying to draw it. I loved the atmosphere and lighting of the photo, plus I haven't drawn a cat before – so it was a double whammy challenge! I was so chuffed when he gave me permission to give it a go. The end result didn't turn out exactly as I imagined, and there are parts that aren't perfect to the photo. But nonetheless, I am very happy with the outcome. Here is a run-through of the process of this drawing, plus a few things I learned along the way! So firstly, I ordered some Vic Bearcroft Black Velour paper, and thought nothing much of it. I did no research whatsoever on using black paper, and just assumed it would behave in the same way as the other Velour papers that I use (same brand, same material, so why worry?) Well.. I had quite a few surprises throughout the process of this drawing, starting from the very beginning. Some good and some bad. One thing I learnt very quickly is that Black Velour paper does not behave like the other Velour papers... Here are a few reasons why. 1. You can't see through it! Uh oh. I couldn't see the printed reference photo through the black paper. At least definitely not well enough to be able to trace it. Yikes. I was gonna have to free-hand draw this one. I guess that will teach me to try and take the easy route! 2. It is a lot more forgiving than lighter coloured papers. Oh good, a nice surprise! It suddenly didn't matter that my free-hand cat outline was absolutely shocking, because I could just alter it as I went by using my black pastel as an eraser, leaving no evidence. YAY! (One annoying thing about other coloured Velour paper is that it does not forgive mistakes.. you can not erase anything, you just have to think of a way to hide it. I was glad to discover that the black paper was a lot more reasonable than this!) 3. It shows up everything, from everyday household dust and fluff to Cockatiel feathers. Fluffkins the Cockatiel lives in the studio / playroom, and his teeny tiny fluffy grey feathers get absolutely everywhere. Well it seems that some of these feathers manage to float across the room to my desk and stick themselves to the velvety Velour paper, and the black showed up every single one. Thankfully, its nothing a bit of sticky masking tape won't sort out! 4. Colours behave differently on black paper. I made the mistake of starting with the brightest areas first. I think to be honest I was just excited about the highlights in the photo and wanted to get straight to them. But all this did was mess up my values (brightness and darkness of tones of colour) and then I really struggled to get the colours and tones to look right. (Also, look at the state of my free-hand drawn cat face! It's wonky! Three-year-old Studio Mascot #1 could probably do a better job!) Here is the moment where I realised it wasn't going especially well. My coloured pencils seemed to look different on the black paper, they even blended differently. It was almost as though I was using different pencils! It's about now that I realised that I should have had a test sheet next to me. As well as that, I found that I had to put down a lot more layers of colour in order to achieve the vibrancy needed, as the black background really dulled the colours down and made them look a bit grainy. A couple of hours later, and it was starting to look how I wanted it to. There was a lot of reshaping and reworking involved to get to this stage, but I thought it would look good when finished. 5. Black paper is very hard to photograph. I'm not sure if its just my camera, but I just couldn't get a decent photo at any stage of this piece. I had to alter it on the computer to make it look like the drawing. It seemed to photograph far too bright (even in a darkened room) and most of the lovely subtle purples, blues and yellows were lost. 6. It makes your brain work harder and think in opposites. Honestly, I should have seen it coming. I should have known that drawing light on dark would be very different to drawing dark on light. Usually, when drawing on white paper, the focus of my effort is on the darker areas. I will build the tones up in layers to achieve depth, and leave out areas of white background to create highlights. The other areas are made up of lighter tones and blending, to achieve the desired effect. The exact opposite applies for working on black paper. The focus of the effort should be on the brighter areas, building up the layers to get that sense of contrast. But (as I learned earlier) these should generally be left until last. So it was great brain-training for me! It really made me look at creating Art from a different perspective! I really felt like I had to work my mind a lot harder to create this piece. Coming towards the end of the drawing now. I couldn't decide whether or not to add a bit of a background for a little extra emotion... And a few hours later.. here is the drawing complete. In the end, I decided to add in a bit of a background, with a bit of blue to help bring out the subtle blue and purple tones in the cats coat. I love the smoky look it creates. 7. I actually love black paper! So despite some struggling, I really enjoyed working with black paper, and I will definitely be using it again. The effect it creates is so dramatic. I don't feel that it would necessarily work with my usual pet portraits, but for a piece of Artwork with the right atmosphere and the right lighting, it works beautifully. Enjoyed this Blog? Have questions? I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to add a comment below :) x
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