A "divergence" - Self Portrait - Charcoal Exercise

Okay, so not a building...or a painting.  Decided it was time to work out some different creative muscles to refresh my artistic spirit and strengthens my skills.  And, several folks have asked me lately if I ever paint people.  "Not often lately has been my usual response."  And so I decided to get a little practice in.  So, I've spent a little time doing some portrait exercises.  Having worked so much from photos lately, working from direct observation was a nice change.  Of course on short notice the easiest subject to find was myself!  So, over the past week or so I've done three self portraits - an acrylic painting, a soft pastel painting and this one from last night, a charcoal drawing.  It's the one I'm happiest with too.

Strong drawing skills are really the foundation for good painting skills.  I suppose that's why I enjoyed doing this one so much as I got to work on my observation skills as well as simplify into black and white, really studying the value variations.  That can sometimes be a challenge when one introduces color into the mix.

For this exercise I used two different charcoal pencils, blending stumps, my fingers, vinyl erasers and just a touch of white pastel pencil.  The drawing was done on heavy white paper and is 8.5 x 11".  Still wanted to keep it fresh and spontaneous.