Woman's Head

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This is a very subtle drawing and there are a great many things I could say about it, but I am going to confine myself to talking about aspects of the technique of the drawing. To begin the drawing I tinted a piece of watercolor paper with a series of washes of terra cotta color. I brought the paper to a certain tint such that when I started to draw with a terra cotta pencil the lightest tones would not show up at all since they would be identical in color to the paper itself. This gave me the ability to bring up the tones and shadows gradually out of the color of the paper, which allows for great control of the tonality of the drawing.

The same is true for the white highlights, some of them are the undisturbed tint of the paper such as the right side of the nose, and some are white chalk which rises out of the color of the paper in such a way that you cannot see the softer strokes at all.

Another subtility of the drawing is the actual paper surface. The surface isn’t exactly paper at all. I filled the paper with acrylic filler, and while it was drying I sprinkled it with fine brick dust and pressed it into the surface. The drawing is of a piece of sculpture, and this surface very beautifully indicates that aspect of marble where the sculptor has brought the surface to perfection and yet the stone must insist on it’s own identity by revealing its little fissures and dents. This, to my eye, is not a fault at all but one of the most beautiful aspects of the surface of sculpture.

Dimensions: 8.3” x 5.25”
Materials: Terra cotta wax pencil on prepared paper
Signature: Bottom edge, Richard Britell, Dec.7, 2001