I had a great time at the Triune Art Auction at Noma Square in Greenville. All sales went to the Triune Mercy Center and the work they are doing for the homeless. The event had a silent auction as well as a live auction with over 50 pieces of artwork. Its was exciting to see the charcoal panda among the top few sellers. Not bad for a salvaged piece of cardboard :).
CARDBOARD CHARCOAL PORTRAITS & DRAWINGS
I love nothing more than a new identity, branding or advertising challenge. However, creating art is a close second. It's great to be able to break up all the computer work with art in the evenings here and there or over a weekend. I remembered having really enjoyed drawing on brown paper once before in the past ,with then pencil (H's to B's) and using a white piece of chalk. I've always been amazed by charcoal artists using just a stick of charcoal and achieving such incredible levels of contrast in their art. After watching a few videos and getting some charcoal pencils, I grabbed a piece of cardboard from the garage and started testing my skills. Brown paper is great, but cardboard adds a texture and it's stiff enough that I can just hold it in my lap without any backing board (super convenient). Using a black pencil, white pencil, kneaded eraser and q-tips for blending, I was able to create some detailed artwork with little expense. I started an Instagram page showing some of my work (@jordanfretzart) and plan to create some advertising with future drawings. I have shown a .gif below showing one of my portraits come to life and I am still experimenting with the best ways to preserve/show off the work. Getting off the computer in the evenings has sparked added creativity and inspiration for current projects. I encourage any designer to do it whenever they can and experiment with new mediums. A few last bits of advice: don't over-erase on the cardboard, don't use too much force with your pencils as it will create impressions/dents and keep your wife's cat away from smacking the pencil you're using.
