small towns & the big city

The sight of a print of Tretchikoffs "Dying Swan" on the wall at a friend’s house, when David Roux was only five years old, was the start of a lifelong interest in art.

He was further inspired by Mrs Forrester, his Grade One teacher who drew stunningly realistic nursery rhyme characters in different coloured chalks. He attended Selborne College in East London, where he was awarded Best Art Student prize in Std. 6 and took art as a subject up to matric under Charles Coppin. David then went on to study Graphic Design at the East London College of Art, under Jack Lugg. “I later joined the group Figures and Form under Joan Sainsbury in Parkhurst, where I noticed the other artists were drawing from life using charcoal. I had never drawn in charcoal before, not even at Art College, where I had always only drawn portraits and figures in graphite. I fell in love with charcoal straight away and enjoyed the dark tones I could get with it - it didn’t have that gray shininess of graphite. Drawing from life helped to hone my skills. And so was born my love for drawing in charcoal on Fabriano paper.”

STEP 1.

Once I had edited the selected photograph that I took of the house in Smithfield, I drew the details onto the canvas with a 2B clutch pencil - note that it isn't necessary to spray fixative onto the pencil lines.

I brushed in the tonal values using Burnt Umber acrylic diluted with water, starting with the darkest values first. For this I used an EVE #3 Golden Taklon brush.

STEP 2

I began adding colour with thin washes of acrylic - this method is similar to painting with watercolours.

STEP 3

I added more colours making sure that the tonal values and hues were correct. Note that I did not put a background wash down (such as Burnt Sienna), before beginning my drawing. If the background is too dark, you can't see what you are drawing, and if you put down a background wash after you have done your drawing, the lines can be smudged.