Aux Trois Crayons

Wetcanvas, the dinosaur site that it is, is still cranking along with fits and hiccups.
The annual portrait swap is still happening, though sadly not the huge event it used to be.

I haven't participated in several years but I thought it would be a nice thing to do.

And I'm in the mood to draw.
I need so much practice and review of anatomy.

So here is my swap partner this year, a nice man named Michael.  I used the trois crayons approach, meaning "three crayons (pencils)": black, white, and an earth red (sanguine).

I used black charcoal, white charcoal, and an earth red pastel pencil.
Maybe for the next one I'll use some nice conte.

There is a lot of allure in the power of simple tools.
Simple basics can do so much.

This portrait took about 3-4 hours.  I'd like to practice and get that time reduced even further.

A few years ago something like this might have taken me around 8 hours.
The black and white portrait swap I did of Clive many years ago took me about 12 hours if I recall correctly (I could search up the old blog post but am too lazy), so I'm getting the time down which is a good thing.