[Chris Saper]

Bill,

Your posting and comments about these drawings are generous beyond words. Thank you.

Having devoured Rebecca's excellent and painstaking tutorial on the Prud'hon technique, I was mezmerized by the quality of light these drawings impart. The cool, silvery brilliance of a full moon here in the night desert is incredibly beautiful, and it never before occurred to me that I could paint that kind of light.

At first I tried using Canson, as it was the only blue-gray paper I could locate. As I have a heavy hand, it took very few iterations of hatching and stumping until I tore through the paper. But the Wallis Sanded Pastel paper can take a real beating so I grabbed all the old scraps I've kept (those that were typically too small for commissioned work). Crumbled pastel/broad strokes can easily be "melted" into the surface with a brush and acetone. I like irregularity in surface quality, but you could easily stain the paper with smooth wash instead.

I stained the paper to an average tonal value that aproximated the mid-point of the value range in the drawing I planned to execute. I used vine charcoal for the preliminary sketch, then switched to black NuPastel and white charcoal pencil for the remaining hatching work, leaving white NuPastel for the highlights at the very end.

Unlike Prud'hons carefully placed and interwoven hatch, my strokes are pretty haphazard. Perhaps one of these days I will feel consumed with patience, and try a slower, more disciplined finish. (But I doubt it.)