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DEFINITIONS OF WORDS AND TERMS CRAYONS - "The word crayons is a generic term that refers to a drawing medium in stick form, including chalk, charcoal, conté crayon, grease crayon, litho crayon, wax crayon, and pastel." (Source: WiseGeek.com)
Photo by George Hernandez for Wikipedia article on Crayons
Drawing or Painting? Some of Brian McGurgan's thoughts on the difference between "drawing" and "painting." Definitions I've read recently for the terms "drawing" and "painting" suggest that a drawing is a picture in which form is defined by line, whereas a painting is a picture where form is indicated using planes of color in varying hues and values. These definitions seem somewhat unintuitive. For example, one could use paint and a brush to create a picture composed mostly of line, and this would meet the definition of a drawing despite the use of paint. Or you could use colored pencils or some other drawing medium to block in planes of color, which would then suggest that your work should be called painting. There is an element of status and valuation involved as well, since the term “painting” can suggest something grander than a “drawing” that perhaps took more time to create, and traditionally drawings are sold for smaller sums of money and displayed less frequently in galleries and museums. Add to this potential confusion the term “sketch”. The definitions I’ve read suggest that this is a drawing or painting that is done more quickly and usually doesn’t cover the full page. Sketches are usually thought of as practice done prior to starting a final piece, or as exercises completed in the field or in the studio to develop skills or capture ideas for future work. Fortunately, Conté crayons can be utilized in all of these manners. In future posts, I hope to describe some of the techniques I use when working with Conté crayons in the hope that others will add to the suggestions I provide. In this way, I hope to share what I’ve learned and in turn benefit from the exploration and learning that other artists have achieved. I’m still very much in the early stages of learning, though, and will probably return to revise or add to these posts over time, as I learn more. When referring to the work I do with Conté crayon, I tend to use the term “drawing”, although this doesn’t sound exactly right when referring to pictures where form has been suggested using planes of color. The term “painting” doesn’t seem quite right either so maybe the English language is missing a word that would be helpful here. Much work that we see produced in Conté crayon falls into the drawing category – especially work produced using sketching crayons with sanguine, bistre, black, gray, or white tones (the traditional Conté sketching crayon colors). My own work tends to fall more into the “painting” category, as does the work of many artists in soft and hard pastels. Actually, the majority of work is probably most accurately described as some combination of drawing and painting, and this is certainly true of my own efforts. Most of the approaches I’ll describe in future posts will speak more of the “painting” techniques since use of Conté crayons for drawings is fairly straightforward. You can either sharpen the crayon using a file or sandpaper, or work with the end of the crayon as-is to produce lines. Applying greater pressure results in thicker, darker line. Techniques used for drawing with pencil work well, including cross-hatching and shading with varying weight to produce tones and shadow. Brian
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