Paul Emsley inspired drawings

One of the artist I introduced to the kids in the "Studying Under the Masters" camp was Paul Emsley. He is known for his large detailed images of people, animals, and flowers. He currently is living in the UK and I discovered him thanks to my sister-in-law, who use to work at Redfern Gallery where he was represented. One Christmas she gave me a book of his work and I have been enthralled with his work every since. I find the kids feel the same way whenever I present his art to them.

Although you might think you have never heard of him before, he was in the news quite a bit when he presented the first official portrait of Kate Middleton to the National Portrait Gallery that he had been commissioned to paint. It was widely controversial at the time.

I had the kids focus on his black and white work and created a charcoal project inspired by his pieces.  Since the cherry blossoms were in magnificent bloom at the time, we used them for reference.

12 year old

This kids started the project by rubbing charcoal all over the paper and rubbing it in with a paper towel. They then lightly sketched in the shapes of their drawing and then using a gummy eraser, took out all the highlights.

8 year old

They then went back in with the charcoal and blocked out all the blacks. At this point, I quickly discussed with them in the importance of the grey scale in work and told them we would now be adding it to their pieces. I handed them some white charcoal and a blender to add to their drawing tools.

8 year old

First they went back over all the areas they erased with the white charcoal and then began blending it in.  Where they wanted the areas whiter, they continued to add/blend in more white.

10 year old

9 year old

Then they went back with the black charcoal and did the same thing creating areas where they wanted a darker grey.

10 year old

7 year old

Each child continued this process of using the white or black charcoal, the eraser and blender until they were happy with their piece.

7 year old

What a wide variety of interpretation they created of the same reference material! I think they are all quite lovely and interesting and I believe the young artists enjoyed the process of learning to work in black and white inspired by the work of Paul Emsley.