Detail of a chalk drawing of hanging cloth on blue paper: black chalk in the folds, white chalk on the ridges, and the blue of the paper showing through the grays between.

Concept · Light in Painting

Drawing on Toned Paper

On toned paper the paper's own color serves as a middle value; the artist works down to the darks and up to the lights.

Black and white chalk on a mid-toned sheet cover the whole range of values.

  • Artist Pamela Lawton's drawing demonstration for the Met does the same in graphite: tone the whole sheet, erase out the lights, add the darks.

See

Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Public Domain (Met Open Access)

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