Awhile back, a friend suggested that we send each other art, and I sent her this stag. This was the second time I approached this drawing. Once again, dry media is more my friend than watercolor (so far; I haven’t given up!). Then again, the second attempt almost always goes better.
The dry media in question is conte crayon with some colored pencils. I’m still unclear on the boundaries between conte crayons, which can be in square stick or pencil forms, and pastels and pastel pencils, and colored pencils, which also come in stick form in some brands. Anybody who can explain the distinctions, please let me know.
Which leads us to the chief of Napoleon’s balloon corps, artist, and inventor Nicolas-Jacques-Conte. During the French revolution, this inventor of many things devised the modern “lead” clay and graphite mixture inside pencils when the war kept the native English graphite out of French hands.
The Britannica claims that the conte crayon is essentially a very hard pencil that comes in various colors, traditionally shades of reds, browns, and black. That’s not how I’d describe how the modern conte sticks feel on the paper. But I like what they can do. A larger set of them is definitely on my wishlist for travel sketching.
