Where's that "void" then?

Putting a charcoal-encrusted paper on my drawing board, I noticed that my shadow made a darker area; that fits well with my "secret story", or subtext, for the "on the edge" topic. This time the idea for the research drawing is to leave a dark "void" in the middle, and make the edges lighter.

The technique we recently used in Extended Drawing class, of using the wiped-away charcoal to make a companion drawing, seemed useful here. The "blank" paper was a bit of tracing paper with some rubbings on it, but never mind, those marks will add to the interest (or disappear) -

Those shadowy-person shapes are irresistible... and here's some energetic use of charcoal, just to get in the mood -

After a while the tracing paper was full of graphite and the charcoal was full of conte. And the marks were much the same everywhere...

 Adding some little squiggles in oil pastel, then wiping over with charcoal -

After a bit of effort the marks became more various - using the rubber, brush pen, felt pen on top of the graphite -

 using rubber in the borders of the charcoal paper -

Here's a right pair - not a "void" to be seen! -

What is it, a sugar loaf? a cone of yarn? -

No, it's turned into a giant thimble in the jungle! -

"Void" #2

At first I had, instead of dimples that sunk in, balls that stuck out - it's all in the amount of highlight. But now they definitely look like dimples, so I feel successful on that front, even though the shading on the larger form doesn't work. That's one of the dangers of working from what you think you know, rather than being able to check what you're seeing.

And ... it's hardly a "void", nor is the idea for the edges developing. Next time...

I'm pleased about coming up with some new-to-me marks with some of my not-much-used materials.