Al Fresco Art Day, May 22, 2020: Taco Sleeping

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Taco is on everyone’s mind. Today we decided that everyone should draw Taco using any media. I chose charcoal and graphite — I’ve been watching Smooth77’s Youtube channel this week — he specializes in traditional sketching and painting. His graphite drawings are inspiring.

I learned that charcoal is messy. Really messy. When I finished this sketch (Taco’s sleeping on my lap), the darks were dark as night. But after I tapped the paper over the sink to release the charcoal dust, the loose pigment fell away and revealed a much brighter, lower contrast image. To perk up the image, I duplicated the image Photoshop set it to 50% multiply to darken the blacks.