Painting New Orleans Blog

Hi Everyone,

One of my new year’s resolutions is to start doing charcoal drawings again.  Once upon a time  charcoal was my primary medium and painting seemed like a bridge too far, but now the opposite is true as paintings flow easily. People say you can never forget how to ride a bike, I really hope the same thing is true of drawing. 

"Road Trip After Katrina", Charcoal on Paper, 2005 

There are a few reasons that I have neglected my drawing practice.   First and foremost, I learned pretty quickly that drawings don’t sell at the same price point as paintings and, if my business was going to be sustainable, I’d have to focus almost all of my efforts on painting.  Also, I never quite got the hang of using a drawing to plan a painting.  I felt that I would lose my spontaneity by doing the composition twice.  Finally, my wife hates it when I get charcoal stains on the couch!

"Grand Isle 2" Charcoal and Gesso on Wood, 2005

My fear is that I am losing my sensitivity to those aspects of drawing that I love.  With drawing you get an emotional catharsis that comes from pressing really hard on the charcoal and conveying a mood through deep, dark shadows.  I hope that I can augment the impact of my colorful paintings by honing my drawing skills like composition, line and movement.

Here I am using a drawing to help plan out a painting of Arnaud's restaurant.

I’ve set up a desk in my studio just for drawing (away from the couch).  Here’s hoping that with practice my drawings will be a bit less clumsy and that you will see a side benefit in the quality of my paintings.  So if you see me with black powder on my fingers, (or even on my nose) you will know that I have been drawing up a storm and following through on my New Year’s Resolution.

"Night Comes to Arnaud's on Bourbon Street" 11" x 14" $195

I think the drawing helped me coordinate the sky and the building in the completed painting.

Thanks For Reading!

Adam K. Hall