The Art of the Conté Drawing

Hello m'lovies.

How have you been? I'm going to start a  products review series of posts, as I think it's important we know what we use. Knowledge is power, or so I've been told (lol).

Conté is a type of drawing chalk, packaged in France in the 1700s by a man called Joseph Conte but artists have been using it since the time of the Renaissance (Michaelangelo, Da Vinci and co all used it to draw). For me, it's a lot better than a Graphite pencil, it has nice colours and is smooth to use. They are a lot like pastels but harder and because the name "Conté" is trademarked.a lot of companies call them "compressed pastel". It has just gotten popular here in Nigeria though.

Thomas Wilmer Dewing, before 1926

Michaelangelo, 1550s

Susan Lyon, 2014

I reviewed a few brands I got recently in Lagos. They are the General's compressed pastel sticks, Conté a Paris (the original brand) and Rembrandt Carre Crayons.

swatches of the colours and brands I have

From top to bottom: Rembrandt, Conte a Paris and General's

I did these quick studies of paintings, to show you what they could do. Nice, no?

Finally, here is my own original work, I spotted this dignified elderly gentleman at National Arts Theatre and insisted on doing a drawing of him, using red Conté.

I really like them and I would urge you to try them out, and you can also mix them with charcoal too. So go have fun!

Africans in Western Art

Hello everyone,

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while, working on a lot of stuff is no excuse to neglect my blog.

Did you know Africans were always painted in Western Art? Of course you didn't, neither did I. But this is very true, so many popular artists from the 16th century painted them, including Rembrandt and Carracci. Some of the Africans painted were educated, belonging-to-the-elite Africans (like the powerful Medici family, who had mixed race members who ruled states in Italy and Spain and contributed to most of the currently ruling European acristocracy) to well....slaves and "savages from the new world".

New pastel studies

I got my set of Rembrandt pastels a few months ago, but I'm just getting into using them. I'm planning a still-life, so decided to do some pastel studies of my favourite fruit, apples.

I set this apple up and did a quick sketch, using Rembrandt and Winsor and Newton soft pastels

This study was done after Deborah Bays, a wonderful pastel painter

I'm enjoying my pastels. There's so much to learn, and weirdly my style of painting in this is so different from my watercolour style. I'll keep you updated on how my journey goes.

Later, everyone.