Water-soluble wax crayons

This was done recently at Life Drawing - just concentrating more on James' face and arm and just using one colour of crayon. Well, I've finished that sketchbook now - and posted a few on Pinterest. Now I am drawing just in pen and ink for the next few sessions. I find it a challenge to switch into drawing with different mediums- a way to shake it up and bring some variety. But even without changing, Life Drawing is always an interesting challenge. With the water-soluble Caran d'Ache crayons,  I usually just do the drawing "dry" and then wash it with water later on. It is an interesting mix of the linear with the coloured wash. After this  new series in ink - which includes doing some small ones on cream coloured paper- I may try some quick water-colour wash "drawings". I'm posting the small ones onto a cupboard door in my studio - just for a different display.

Caran d'Ache

     Here are a few recent life drawings- this first is two five-minute poses from our rotation pose, the next two are 20-minute poses and the last is 35 minutes. All are drawn with Caran d'Ache watersoluble wax crayons. The last book I filled at Life Drawing was black and white on grey paper so I figured it was time for a switch into colour. Draw dry, take a brush to wet the drawing and it all blends in but can still retain a bit of the linear look of drawing.
     As you know from previous blogs,  I've been looking into the history of pencils and drawing materials so I researched the Caran d'Ache line. This line has over 100 years of history as  the factory was set up in Geneva in 1915 using graphite found in the Swiss mountains. Around the same time, there was an illustrator in Paris who became very famous. He took the pen name (or should we say "pencil name"?) of Caran d'Ache from the Russian word for pencil. And, just to make this even more of an international mix-up, the Russia word comes from a Turkish root "kanco tash" which refers to black stone. Nine years after starting, the Swiss company took the name of the illustrator and used a stylized version of his signature as their logo. I'm assuming the illustrator was paid for this.
     Caran d'Ache makes a full line of pencils, pens and drawing materials. Their pens are renowned for  being especially beautiful. For the 100year anniversary, Caran d'Ache created a clever design of a ballpoint pen that looks like a pencil. Unfortunately, I don't have one but I do enjoy the Caran d'Ache
materials that I do have.