Not really feeling the first bit of the exercise. Here is a selection of pages with a selection of marks. If I had to characterise any of them then .. maybe … one is “flames”, one is “waves”, one is the view out my window, and one is “anger”.
The second bit: “lifting” charcoal off the page is easier said than done. I tried a kneadable eraser and some other shaped erasers. The main problem I had is that it is only possible to get a clean lift once (twice at a stretch) before one has to somehow clean the eraser surface – otherwise it becomes a blending tool (which has its own uses). In the case of the first I found i could re-knead it and in the second cleaning the eraser on a blank piece of paper. So the eraser is not a magic reverse-drawing tool – it is a case of lift-clean-lift-clean – difficult to be free-flowing and spontaneous.
But the mechanics aside – the technique is an interesting way of building up layers of subtlety/complexity – and you can continue almost indefinitely until a pleasing balance of light/dark, smudged/clear, suggested form (maybe), emerges. I’m not entirely sure I achieved that here but the seed of something is there.
I unearthed a set of water-soluble ink pencils and used a sheet of watercolour paper for the next excercise. I seem to channeling my inner Miro.
