02 / The Process
How apieceis made
Two ways of working, four stages, and a lot of waiting between layers.
Stage 01
The ground
A scribble drawing starts as one flat colour across the whole frame. Violet, red or black, with nothing in it yet. Whatever goes down after that has to hold up against a colour that will not move.
Stage 02
The line
The figure goes on as scribble, fast, with no correcting. No soft edges anywhere. Density carries it, so the form reads solid where the line packs tight and the ground comes back through where it thins out.
Stage 03
The pencil work
This goes the other way entirely. Layer over layer until the tooth of the paper stops showing. A single portrait can take weeks, and most of that is spent in grey.
Stage 04
Rationing the colour
In the portraits colour goes on two or three things and stops there. A visor, a headwrap, a shirt stripe. It carries because everything around it stayed in graphite.
Commissions run the same way. You see the ground, or the first grey pass, before the long stretch of the work starts.