It’s tax day in the US; and that always make me a little weepy. Appropriately enough, this red onion brought a tear to my eye too (Everyday Matters Challenge #179 – Draw an Onion).

Continuing with my exploration of charcoal, this was done completely with willow charcoal in an 11×14 Strathmore 400 Series drawing pad that I bought back in January and haven’t touched since. The quality of the scanned image is a little weird in spots, because my scanner is puny, so I had to scan in four separate images and stitch them together — will have to consider using a regular camera in the future.

I’m still trying to get control over the charcoal so I can get a good range of shading, especially in the mid-tones. When I lay it down, it is too dark; then when I blend, it gets too light. Or, I wind up with all the mid-tones appearing to be the same shade, and the resulting image (in this case, the face of the fat part of the onion) looking flat and boring. Then I start mucking with it, and overwork the whole thing until I kill any remaining life in the thing. Obviously, Jeff needs more practice.