black charcoal + gold ochre pastel drawing on reused cardboard

I love making recycled art, but sometimes I don't want to incorporate the colors or shine of the packaging. So this week, I bought a gold ochre soft pastel and decided to use the cardboard back of La Croix packaging.

I referenced a photo of a male model I found on Pinterest and did an entire layer in the black charcoal first. Then, I sprayed it with fixative and added a layer of pastel for the highlights. I finalized the details with some more charcoal and am pretty pleased with the result.

The proportions of the face are not exactly what I wanted, but for a 3-hour drawing, it came out pretty good. My main issue working on cardboard before was the darker base color, but this gold ochre pastel matches up with the cardboard color really well, giving it the same natural color but with some gold to brighten it up.

I will definitely use this technique moving forward and recommend it if you are on a budget and want to work with affordable and reused materials.

Subscribe for more art shorts: @bobgramatges1

#art #charcoaldrawing #artshorts #pasteldrawing #recycledart