Fin!
It’s now been a few days since I finished the big carbon-dust illustration I’ve been sharing progress on here. I thought I’d share a few more steps in the process for anyone following along, and some interesting pictures.
Finished piece!
Here’s a wide shot showing the whole thing! You can see how melty it gets at the edges. All of that will be covered by a mat, at about 16x20 inches.
There was a LOT of erasing to do at the end. While I was able to get the film back to pure white almost everywhere, I wish I’d taken more care to keep it clean just to reduce the work! However, I’m not sure it’s realistic to have it be a whole lot more efficient, because as you can see I brushed carbon straight off the top throughout the process, and it worked its way back down under the translucent film onto the back.
It’s totally worth working on an angled board, though. It’s so much easier on my neck and back. I also think it’s much easier to get your perspective right when the whole piece is a more equal distance from your eyeballs. This is a more obvious problem at larger sizes, but if you think about it, if you make something look “right” to your eye when the top of the paper is way further from your eyes than the bottom is, once you put it up on a vertical wall it will be pretty different looking!
Side note that while I do have a drafting table to work on, it doesn’t raise very far, and my computer (not to mention my coffee cups!) have to share it. I do pop it up sometimes but in this case, I went with a separate finished plywood board I could raise on top of the table with a big art bin under the back and lots of tape holding the front edge steady to the table.
Side side note: this board has also been used as a puzzle assembly surface and a tap-dance practice platform :D
The top edge problem children
These branches were laid down with a big brush full of black dust, which came back to haunt me on the back of the surface.
I knew that spraying with alcohol had a great fixative effect on carbon dust, which was great seeing as how I needed to turn this whole piece over multiple times throughout the process to add the colored pencil bits to the back. What I was delighted to learn was that it really didn’t matter what droplet size I sprayed since I was on film. When working carbon dust on paper, it’s really important to get a very fine aerosol, but even the biggest drippy drops I got with my unsophisticated spray bottle of isopropyl here did not show up at all once they dried! Success.
The back view
Here’s a look at how the whole thing looks when rolled over to see the colored pencil on the back side of the film.
Late in the game as I could stand, I replaced the original piece of drawing paper I’d started with under the piece with a new one which is sturdier and brighter white. I knew that the original piece would get transferred carbon onto it throughout the process as I added colored pencil, and would eventually have to go.
Hope you have enjoyed following along with this unique process! I’m excited to work on small and colorful things next, but I do want to add more trees to create a series of these. I interviewed a lot of neighborhood trees in the process of deciding on this one, and have lots of friends to revisit! Let me know whether there’s something you’re curious about, or a suggestion for a next project, in the comments below! :)
