Tutored Life Drawing Blog Week 12: Drawing on Midtone Paper (Patreon)

Toned paper offers an interesting alternative to the usual white drawing surfaces. Starting with a midtone paper encourages a tonal approach, and can also help you start to explore colour contrasts.

This lesson will focus on drawing with two or three colours on midtone papers using red conté, charcoal and white chalk for red, black and white. Midtone papers are a versatile surface to work on, and it is worth experimenting with using other media on them, such as ink or watercolour.

Materials

A selection of white, red, brown and black media.

White pencils are used to create lighter tones, and should stand out against the paper's tonal value. Here there are a couple of brands of white pencil, plus chalk. In pencils the white pigment is mixed with a binder to make them tougher, so the pencil can be sharpened to a finer point for making more precise lines. This tends to make them less luminous than pure chalk. White conté sticks are also created by mixing pigment with wax, clay and different binders.

The red colours can be made with one of a number of different red pigments bound into sticks or pencils. The most common pigment is sanguine, which comes in a number of different varieties based on historical locations, or brand variations. Other earth pigments are sometimes used. Crayons are better for making big marks, and tend to be a bit softer than pencils.

Charcoal can be used in any form on toned paper. Charcoal pencils are darker than willow charcoal, but will not blend as readily; they are best suited for finer lines. Charcoal sticks are great for producing large areas of dark tone, but vary in their composition – some are softer than others. (For more on working in charcoal, see Week 11: Subtractive Tone.)

Toned papers come in a huge range of different types. There is no correct paper to use, but certain properties of the paper will make it more suitable for the drawing process, or your own personal preferences.

Tan (Clairefontaine PaintOn), grey (Strathmore 400) and brown papers (Seawhites).

When drawing 'au trois crayons', it helps to use a medium weight paper or thicker (more than 100gsm), and the paper needs to have a surface that takes chalk well. This often comes down to testing different types, as chalky materials sometimes do not adhere well to all papers. Most toned drawing papers are reliable, with specialist pastel papers being a high end option. Found papers can be a source of inexpensive and unusual drawing surfaces, though some may be too smooth for chalks.

The tone of the paper is also important, though this is more down to taste. Darker papers may not show red crayon very well due to lack of tonal contrast. Should the colour compliment the earth tones of the crayons, or contrast them? More traditional papers include brown earth tones, greys, or muted blues and greens, but the options open to us nowadays are less restricted. If you are uncertain, earth tones and greys are a good starting point.

Making Toned Papers

One option if toned paper is not readily available is to make some from scratch. This opens up the option of picking the paper colour and tone. It is also possible to apply tone to sketchbook pages this way.

To create toned paper, it is best to use diluted ink, acrylic or watercolour, as dry media will continue to mix with anything drawn on top – for instance, rubbed-in charcoal will not remain fixed, but blends into whatever is drawn on it. Ideally, use a reasonably thick paper, such as 200gsm or more, although it is possible to get away with lighter weights.

This dilute blue tone was created with blue and a little brown ink, watered down.

Start by mixing ink, acrylic, or tube watercolour with water in a pot or tub. Test the mixture on some scrap paper before applying it to a full page to ensure it is the right tone.

Using a large brush or clean sponge, wash the mixture evenly over the paper. Give it plenty of time to dry before drawing on it. If the pages curl, they can be flattened out by leaving something heavy on top overnight, or clipped down to a flat board for drawing. Try to avoid touching the centre of the page before the wash goes on – fingers can leave oils that repel the wash, leaving a mark.

A few home-made toned papers created with dilute Indian ink.

Don't worry too much if there are brush strokes or other textures in the wash. This can add a bit of character to the page, and indeed might be something worth experimenting with using coarser sponges or brushes.

Drawing Process

These drawing processes show a couple of approaches to drawing on midtone paper, but they are not definitive. There are many ways to work with this media, and it rewards experimentation. Consider how the materials can be manipulated, and how the layering of different tones plays a role in the final result.

This first example uses charcoal and white pencil plus chalk on a handmade darker toned paper. Combining chalk and charcoal can be a simpler approach that nonetheless has the potential to create an effective result.

To start, the figure is sketched out with willow charcoal. This is then blended gently to make it lighter.

This line drawing made with a charcoal pencil uses the willow charcoal layout as an anchor, primarily to capture the contours of the figure.

Continuing with the charcoal pencil, shadows are created, mostly using cross-contour lines to build up darker marks. By now the initial willow charcoal sketch can barely be seen.

The white pencil is left to the final stages of the drawing, and is used to draw in the lights. Placing this in last helps reduce the chances of the white pencil mixing with the charcoal.

 Finally, using a mixture of chalk and white pencil, an area of white has been added around the figure to define the silhouette. This is partly a compositional choice to draw attention to a focal area, but it also solidifies the silhouette of the figure by strengthening the negative shapes created by the arms and hair.

This second example introduces red pencil, and works with a more brightly coloured blue paper. Though this is a more developed drawing, the general process of working from a mid-tone red to dark charcoal and white pencil can be applied to shorter drawings.

This loose starting sketch lays in the major features and contours. These lines will be covered by later layers of drawing, but are light enough that they can be mostly erased if needed.

Continuing with the red pencil, a first layer added to the hair to creates a tonally darker base to contrast with the lighter skin tones. Whilst it is impossible to reproduce every strand of hair, I have tried follow the overall direction the hair 'flows' in.

This light application of the red pencil is used to render some of the shadow tones of the skin. It is blended a little to help soften the marks.

Black tone is added using charcoal pencil, mostly in the shadows on the hair, which are much darker than any of the skin tones. Rather than pursuing a colour-accurate result, this is more of a way to notate the shadows.

This final stage adds the lights using a white pencil. Though not as light as chalk, this is better for creating cross hatching, which helps with showing cross contours. This precision helps with drawing the small highlights on the hair too.

Artworks on Toned Paper

Though working on toned papers au trois crayons is associated with life drawing and a fairly conventional drawing style, it can create more diverse looks thanks to the malleability of the materials and tonal contrasts made possible.

This energetic sketch shows the red appearing to be used to create a base sketch before black and white are added on top. This drawing uses black to indicate shadows and dark tonal value of the hat, whilst the white shows the highlights in the dress fabric and the light tonal value of the paper she is looking at.

Paul César Helleu - Woman (Possibly Madame Alice Hellu) Looking at a Drawing (Source: Cleveland Museum of Art)

This early caricature makes greater use of how blendable red chalks and charcoal are for affecting a sense of warm and cool contrasts. Charcoal indicates the darker fabrics whilst the red chalk is used for lining and the skin tones. The volumes of the face, though rendered with subtle tonal contrasts, make use of the shift between warmer red chalk for lighter areas and more neutral charcoal in the darker areas to imply flesh tones with minimal colour.

Nicolas Lagneau - Elderly Man Reading a Book (Source: Cleveland Museum of Art)

Although I've erred towards recommending lighter toned papers, darker papers can be effective too. The above example was drawn on a dark blue paper with chalk, charcoal and black ink. The paper's tone keys the whole drawing darker to create a more convincing night scene. Chalk stands out more on darker papers, creating a luminescent effect – here that is used to indicate the light sources of torches and the moon, which are always substantially lighter than other subjects.

Pierre-Félix Wiesener - The Ride of a Warrior Ghost (Source: Minneapolis Institute of Art) The original drawing is at very high resolution, and well worth a look!

Key Points to Remember About Drawing on Toned Paper

• Trois crayons uses charcoal as the black, sanguine chalks and other red pigments as the red, and white chalks as the white.
• Toned papers can come in many colours, and can be made using washes on other paper.
• Be mindful of the different stages to the drawing – consider the order the colours are applied in, and whether they should be blended or not.

Over to You – Drawing with Toned Papers

Recommended Materials: Toned papers, various forms of charcoal, red pencils or conté sticks, white pencils or chalk.

Further Reading: Lesson 11 – Subtractive Tone 

Exercise 1: Make Your Own Midtone Paper

Before starting out, let's make some paper to draw on. It is fine to pick any colour, though more muted tones, and lighter colours tend to be easier to work with, but don't feel limited to these. If you don't have any watercolour to hand, dilute black ink can still make a nice grey paper.

An assortment of differently toned papers, created using black, blue and brown inks diluted with water.

Exercise 2: 2-Tone Drawing on Toned Paper

In this exercise, try using either a black or red crayon plus white on toned paper. Draw any subject of your choice.

It probably easiest to use red crayons plus white on a lighter toned paper, and charcoal plus white on a darker paper, but this is certainly not a rule! Consider how the crayons and the papers are likely to contrast, and try experimenting with different combinations.

This woodland scene was drawn with various different forms of charcoal layered up to create the strong dark tones and textures. The white was added with chalk at the very end.

Exercise 3: 3-Tone Drawing on Toned Paper

Extending the previous exercise, try working with all three colours on toned paper, again, with subject of your choice. Consider how to use the red pencil; is it is for the initial sketch, or does it have a purpose to indicate something specific, such as skin tones, or warm colours? Black and white tend to have more fixed roles, but red can act both as a midtone, or a source of colour contrast.

For a bigger challenge, consider adding a second mid tone pencil, such as a darker brown tone.

These quick sketches use the red pencil to create the gesture, and add skin tones, whilst the black strengthens the contours and adds darker tonal values, and the white indicates highlights, and helps silhouette the figure.

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Further links

>> Watch the Week 12: Midtone Paper main lesson HERE (Student & Life Tiers)  
>> Watch the Week 12: Midtone Paper demo HERE (Student & Life Tiers)

Find links to the whole Tutored Life Drawing Course HERE