Get our guide ‘Life Drawing Success’, which is all about the one big mistake which led to all my other mistakes:
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This is a tutorial about how to use Antoine Watteau’s Trois Crayons drawing technique to help your figure drawings feel 3D and simplify drawing light and dark.
Trois Crayons (or three chalk) is the use of sanguine, black (or dark brown) and white on neutral coloured paper. The paper becomes a mid-tone, so light areas can be achieved by applying the white. The sanguine and black can then be used for lines and tones, with black taking care of the darkest areas and strongest lines. The sanguine is warm and gentler than the black, so the 3 colours really complement each other in a beautiful way.
This tutorial is also a story about Mayko working to break out of a drawing slump she is in. She’s been feeling frustrated with her drawing - something I think many of us can relate to. She chose to study Watteau - some of her favourite drawings - to help re-inspire her and put the fun back into drawing.
Notes on materials
Watteau used well-sharpened chalks (crayon) in sanguine, black and white. Conté à Paris makes similar chalks in the forms of ”carré” and pencils (black is called Pierre noir).
You can use pastel pencils for the sanguine. She used Faber Castell PITT pastel pencil. Stabilo CarbOthello is nice and soft, but also a bit breakable. Koh-I-Noor makes good affordable ones in sets.
She’s using pierre noir for the black, a 3B.
Mayko likes to use any brand of soft pastel for white to get more opacity and richness than she would get with a white pastel pencil.
You can also use some decent colour pencils for sanguine and black, but white coloured pencils are often a bit weak to bring out strong highlights.
The paper is very important for this technique. It has to be a neutral colour. She used beige Ingres paper. Ingres paper is great for chalk, pastel, charcoal, but it has a fine stripy grain, so it’s hard to make smooth continuous lines on it, although it takes pigments well.
You can get tinted pastel paper without a grain, but it’s hard to really know how paper feels before actually use it. You can get some “sample packs” at some online shops, so if you want to know more about paper, that’s good way to go.
Or you can apply a thin wash of watercolour to white paper to get a neutral tint on it, but there is a risk that the paper warps, unless you stretch it beforehand. But you know what, light brown wrapping paper or craft paper is also great for your practice.
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The photo of the lady’s face we show is a Croquis Cafe reference photo: [ Ссылка ]
We show a drawing by Lane Brown [ Ссылка ] and another by Frank Gambino [ Ссылка ]
Music: Birds in Flight by Dan Lebowitz
Acoustic Guitar 1 by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence ([ Ссылка ])
Artist: [ Ссылка ]
The Opening by Dan Lebowitz
Osaka Rain by ALBIS
Wishful Thinking by Dan Lebowitz
