I was going to do a WIP of a portrait, but decided against it because I wanted to do something BIG.
A friend of ours is an art teacher and she gave me several sheets of B2 (50cm x 70cm) paper. I think it is 220 gsm but I'm not sure. In any case it is a good quality paper and acid free.
I wasn't able to use paper of this size in the past due to the fact that the only surface large enough to draw on is used for eating three times a day. But thanks to my friend giving me the drafting table I can do it. Boy with friends like these who needs an art budget?
Here is the reference photo that I found on the Internet. Normally I don't show my reference material because it is usually several photos that I use to compose a piece, but this piece will be using only the one reference.
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I would also like to let you know that I have created a website for Blanchette Fine Art. I will be posting this same WIP at that site.
I actually started the project last weekend so I will post the first 10 hours of work now. Okay, let's go!
First a few pics:
This one is to get an idea of the paper size and how I protect it as I work. Now you know what I use the ruler for. Those are two A4 sheets of paper taped to the slide ruler. Works great and I just slide it along as I go further to the right.
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As you can see from the photo I've laid out the top left corner. I used 2B, F, and 4H for the lighter areas. It would take forever to lay down 7 layers of 6B to do the black areas so I used a charcoal stick. I don't use charcoal very often but for these large areas it is great. I actually rub it into the paper with my finger. Usually fingers are a no no, but it works great for control and driving the grains deep into the tooth of the paper. I then pull out the highlights with an architect eraser.

Here is a photo showing the entire line drawing.
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The line drawing took around 6 hours to do. So based on my personal time calculation of 10 X the sketch time equals finished work, this one should take around 60 hours. As I mentioned I have 10 hours into it as of this post.

So enough for today and I hope you all enjoy the nostalgic trip with Charlie and me.

Very nice start RJ ....the detail is going to look awsome .. already showing on the bolt

RJ, that's a great reference and a fun piece to do, as well as being challenging. It looks like you've made a good start on it. I'll be watching your progress.

looks very good.

Cannot wait to see when you have progressed more on it!

what a good start, as you obviously would do, it will do a wonderful peace!!

I'll be watching too!

Nice to have you all on board!

As you can see from this update, I have started the pants and part of the large cogged wheel. I'll need to refine it, but it's good to see things are taking shape. I cropped the image so you could see more detail. Unfortunately there is some discoloration from the unnatural lighting when I took the photo. I will take the next photo in sunlight so you can get a better look at the tonal values. For now I have all the tonal values that I will use through out the drawing. This will help for the rest.

I used 2B on the pants and blended a bit with F and 4H. The Cog is 2B and 4H. I used a chamois cloth to blend the cog. The triangular part of the cog on the bottom is charcoal that I went over with the chamois cloth.

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Just a quick word on the my graphite. I use Caran d'Ache 2mm leads in their 2mm clutch pencils (Fixpencil). This graphite feels great, looks great and is easy to work with whether your layering or erasing. . If you can get it, I highly recommend it.

I find this very interesting.....Fantastic work in progress R.J.....I'm in too.

it's really starting to turn out

Hi RJ,

It is awesome... I was waiting for this to start.. I too will be a part of this... Thanks for sharing it with us.

Rupa

That's some crazy skills you have there! I'm definitely gonna keep an eye on this.

Hi RJ, Love the way this is progressing. will be keeping an eye on it.

How large is your reference?

Firstly the photo above is the reference photo. Kind of small but that is all that is needed.
So you may be asking yourself how I was able to do the sketch with such a small reference?
To do the sketch I used a program called MS Visio. Any program with rulers would work. Sometimes I will use GIMP the same way.
Using the measurement tools I scaled the photo to the paper size 50 x 70 cm. I then measured where my references were on the paper and started drawing in more and more detail.
For example; I started with the large bolt measuring the six points from the left edge and top of the paper. Then I just connected the dots and drew the rest by eye. All the small bolts were done the same way measuring the center and then drawing the detail. If at any time I felt that it didn't look right I would just take more measurements. From there I just kept finding reference points and drew the detail. I continued this way until the sketch was well laid out. I then went back a few times and tried to refine areas like the face where I knew I would need more detail. It took me six hours to do that and it was definitely not the the most interesting part of the drawing. The fun part is the rendering and watching the piece come to life.

Great work as always rj... following your every step on this.
I realise now that to take time in measuring is so important. I do take my time on that now and you are right... It is well worth taking the time.

Oh man what a mess!

Here is the third update but I was lucky to be able to do it without tossing the whole drawing.

I was messin' around in the studio and by accident some putty glue sticky stuff fell on the drawing. After a 2 minute swearing session I had a look at the demage. It wasn't too bad. Most of it fell in an area that I was going to apply charcoal to so it will cover. So it turned out that there were just two areas that I needed a solution for. On the right arm between the elbow and the wrist and on the cog to the right of the right bicep.

What I decided to do is make everything a little dirtier. I added some grease marks to the arm and to the cog and it covered the damaged paper very well.

Now I have to put the drawing aside for a few days because I'm tired of working on it. The next step is the face. I don't want to have any concentration problems when I do that. Maybe I'll try one of the callenges and then come back to it. Or then again maybe I'll feel different tomorrow? All I know is that if I have it in my head that I don't want to draw and I draw anyway, I can be sure that I will make a mistake. I always need to remind myself to take those breaks.

So back to the drawing. I filled in those dark areas with charcoal, finished off the pants (blended with F and pulled some light spots with an eraser), and pretty much completed the shirt (4H), arm (4H and F) and wrench(2B, 4H and F) any blending I did I used the chamois cloth.

By the way I love charcoal. I don't know why I don't use it more. Saturday I'm going to go out and get some frisket film and do some experimenting. I saw how JD Hillberry uses it and always wanted to try his tutorial.

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Still bad lighting for the picture. The top left corner shows nothing but reflection. We should have some good weather for next week so I can get a shot in the sun.

I recently got his "textures" book and it's been very enlightening, how he uses different drawing materials to achieve contrasts. He talks a lot about the difference in reflectivity between graphite, charcoal, and carbon pencil, and how to use that difference to advantage.

Like I said I needed to get away from the Chaplin drawing for a while. It's not that I don't want to draw. I draw almost every day. I just needed a break from this drawing.

So here is what I did in the meantime. You may remember her? A National Geographic award winning photo of an Afghan girl in a refugee camp in 85. I used charcoal and graphite and the drawing took around 3 hours. I had already done the sketch some time ago. I was meaning to do it and this was a good opportunity.
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After doing this I already feel like getting back to the WIP. It is important for me to have variety in what I do. Otherwise I don't think I would ever finish half the drawings I've done.

RJ

As they say "If you can't fix it..Hide it" LOL It must have been devastating I can understand the swearing... think I heard you in AU
Good that you did manage to fix the damage... Following your WIP in awe.
Love the Afghan girl. wow only 3 hours.



RJ Took this photo in Ireland this year...thought you may like to see it...or even draw it.


Charlie Chaplin

Thanks for your message Dors. I appreciate it.

So I managed to get back to the drawing. I moved down to the face. It's not done but it gives me some idea of how it is going to look. In the films the faces always seemed a bit white. Certainly due to the way they needed to use make-up. I think I'll give Charlie some color though. It's going to take some trial and error to get the expression in the eyes. They need to be much darker. I'm blocking a bit on the eyes for the moment so I'm going to move on to the upper right corner and come back to the face later.

I hatched the face with an F lead and then lightly blended with a chamois cloth. When I come back to the face I'll use a 2B to hatch in some shadows and with a very light touch blend it with a stump.

You may also notice that I added some highlights up top in the dark area of charcoal to bring out the spokes of the wheel.

That's it for this update, I'll try to get back before the end of the week with another update. For all of you following, don't work too hard and spend more time drawing.

Fascinating WIP RJ .....you have made this very interesting.....I admire your talents very much..

well you said for those following not to work so hard and keep on drawing....well I did work hard today but still found time to try a quick sketch of his caricature...lol.

Brian.

Thanks Brian. I like your drawing.

Down to the wire on this one.

At this stage of the drawing, you might think that it is done; but there are still quite a few refinements to work on. Such as: The top left right hand corner, Charlie's left palm, adding more character to the face, getting more depth in the hair, adding more contrast to areas around the machine to give it a more 3D look, and last but by far not the least, sign it.

So, I'm looking for your comments and suggestion on how to finish the piece. Do you see any areas that need work that I have overlooked?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Here you see the complete drawing and a close-up for your comments.
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Really great Work RJ love the metallic look of the metal.

RJ, it feels presumptuous of me to criticize your work at all -- it's first rate stuff. Anything I have to say is just one man's opinion. Take it with a grain of salt. Feel free to ignore it.

But since you asked... I do think that one issue I've spotted in some of your portraits is that one of your greatest strengths can be a weakness as well; and I think that's the case here. You can make these incredibly clean edges, which are fantastic for hard objects (like the machinery here, and that awesome train) but which don't work as well for skin or hair. There are some edges here (the chin, the lower side of the face, the back of the neck, his right arm (especially the heel of the hand), the perimeter of the eyebrows) which are just too crisp to be organic. Skin has little hairs on it and such which make its boundaries appear not quite so sharp, and even Charlie's made-up eyebrows would have fuzzier borders than that. The sharp borders detract from the image for me, and somehow make it look vaguely digital.

There are two ways to go after this -- either do more modeling near the edges, just so the value transition isn't as abrupt at the boundary, or actually make the edge fuzzier. I don't consciously do the latter, but I think it happens naturally for me as a consequence of my technique; my edges just aren't as clean as yours, even if I want them to be.

Great feedback Ernest, thanks. It got me over the block I was having with the head/face.

Have a look at this update. The picture is not so great, but I'm sure you'll notice the areas that I'm working on.

The biggest change is in what I call the character. In the reference photo his eyebrows are raised. I've never seen raised eyebrows without some wrinkling in the forehead. So I added some lines there. I'll refine them a bit more. The same with the smile. It looked like it needed to have the skin stretched outward. I also added some small wrinkles around the eye. I applied your suggestion to soften the eyebrows and the chin a bit. It is difficult to get a lot of detail in the face because it is only around 5 inches wide.
I'm still not quite satisfied but it seems to be headed, no pun intended, in the right direction.

Thanks again.
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You have headed precisely, smack-dab in the direction I was imagining, yes. Great! I'm so glad I could help.

Here is the second reference photo that I used to update the face. It is always good to try to use several references.
In this photo you can see how the brow and checks are formed when his mouth is open. It was also helpful for getting better detail in the eyes and checking the shape of the nose.

Here's my last post for this WIP.

The final touches have been to go over the drawing and darken it up a bit to give it better contrast. I then waited for the sun to come out and took this photo. I'm happy with the drawing and I have framed it and it is now hanging in our living room over the sofa.

So you don't have to go to the first post here's what was used.

Paper B2 (50cm x 70cm - 20in X 28in) 220 gsm bristol
Charcoal was used for all the very deep black areas around the machine
Caran d'Ache Graphite grades 2mm 4H, F, 2B and 3mm 6B were used through out the drawing.
The sketch time was 6 hours and the rendering was 45 hours. I saved a bit of time using the charcoal.

I hope you found this WIP interesting and I hope to share more with you in the furture. Thanks to everyone who has been following and special thanks to Ernest for his input on Charlie's face.

Happy Thanks Giving

Thank you RJ for a most enjoyable and interesting WIP. Very impressive as all your work is. Looking forward to your next WIP.

Thanks for following Doreen. I'm glad you liked it.

beautifully rendered. it really does look just like a black and white photo, and you have really captured the emotion of the piece.

Loved the WIP... Wonderful work.. love the detail as usual... thanks again for sharing it with us RJ

Rupa

Thanks for the comments Obscured Scarlet and Rupa. I'm happy you liked the WIP. I'll be on the lookout for your next uploads in the gallery.

See you around,