Eraser Drawings

 "Turning" 21x12", willow charcoal, white plastic eraser, hands/fingers

   For the Eraser Drawing assignment, I started with just the willow charcoal. I started by covering the entire paper with charcoal, smudging it around with my hands, erasing some curved organic lines, and repeating this process. I was particularly interested in the way dragging my fingers over lines that had been erased would lighten dark areas and darken the erased areas. You can see this happening the most on the right hand side of the page, near the center.

"Swimming Solo" 21x12", Rembrandt black pastel, white plastic eraser

  For my second drawing in this assignment, I decided to go with something more representational. Fish are one of my favorite subjects to draw and paint, so I went with a goldfish. I covered the entire paper in the pastel, erased some large portions of the background, filled them back in, then erased the general shape of a fish. I then erased in the fish's details, adding a few lines of pastel at the end.

 "Sinking Landscape" 21x12", willow charcoal, Rembrandt black pastel, hands, white plastic eraser

   For my third drawing, I started out by coating the paper in willow charcoal and rubbing it into the paper with my hands. I erased horizontal lines into the charcoal using my eraser, rubbed in more charcoal, and repeated. I then randomly applied a few large patches of the black pastel and rubbed it into the paper with my hands. I started to erase those diagonal lines in, and I would go back and forth between erasing the lines and rubbing in more pastel. It began to look like an abstracted landscape, so I added some vertical black lines to represent foliage. I later decided that it looked better upside-down to how I had drawn it, so I rotated it.

 "Vortex" 21x12", willow charcoal, Rembrandt black pastel, and gesso all mixed with water; eraser

   For my final piece, I mixed all of the previous materials with gesso and water. I painted the liquid onto the paper, leaving one white shape. I then erased into the wet liquid in a rotational motion, unintentionally ripping the paper. I repeated this a few times, and occasionally instead of ripping, the eraser would just push the liquid, creating a sort of texture almost resembling impasto in a painting.