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Cathy McFarland

Charcoal Salvation

I had not done anything in a couple of days. By the time it reached Sunday I was beginning to fear that the initial art high wave I had been riding was preparing to crash. Was it simply another notion that was now going to fall by the wayside? The one bright side was despite not feeling remotely included to do anything in my mind I still wanted to do something. Some part of me wanted to do something.


To me, charcoal is a great medium when you cannot find the motivation or inspiration to do anything specific. It's very nature allows you to be very rough and inaccurate - if you wish. You can file it to a point and be extremely accurate (I have a lovely charcoal pencil for that), or use a block on its side to just make marks.


I knew I hadn't done any nude work in a while, so I grabbed my collection of images and some charcoal and made a start. As the artistic mojo was not with me I opted to use the side of the charcoal. This at least got me making marks. I ended up filling about four pages of sketches. They were loose with little detail but I was quite happy with how they looked. One in particular took on quite an abstract appearance. In my mind I can see how this would look as an abstract painting. I can even see the colours I would use. At the moment I lack the skill level to realise this but I can still write it up in my growing project book to take on at a later date when I feel more able.



Overall it was not a great art day. It did remind me though that it is always worth trying to do something, because you never know what you may get out of it. None of today's work was wonderful. It was good practise. And it did lead to a few incitements:

  1. Even average work can open the doorway to something better later on.

  2. I have a small collection of nude images I work from and I have realised I am going to stick with these figures as I love them all and see no reason to expand beyond them when I am still mastering them. Some of the impressionists did this too. They had set poses they reproduced in paintings that just worked in their compositions. ;)

  3. If all else fails, lift your charcoal.

  4. Remember that not all work needs to be good.

  5. If you can't find any inspiration, maybe you can inspire yourself.

Anyway. At least I got my fingernails dirty.

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