Trippy Thursday - Greek Philosopher

It's time for another #trippythursday this time on black paper with white charcoal.

Consider this a youngish Aristotle.

For the lettering I picked some classical Greek writing and placed it as a background. Don't worry I got rid of the reptilian eye later in the process.

I've never really worked with soft white chalk on this Canson black paper before. So the start of the process was a bit iffy.

The chalk and grain of the paper was quite rough. Fortunately I had a blending sponge and it really helped get the mid-tones down.

From here it was just a matter of laying down more and more tones and sharpening a harder chalk pencil for highlights. I also started worrying about the tape. Will it peel off this black paper I've never tried before?

Past the face I still hadn't planned on what would go in the rest of the dark space.

So I just filled it up with some highlight to try and get the sense of a light source. Then I realized the light source was in the wrong direction lol. Sometimes you just draw without thinking.

Then I looked up writing by Aristotle to turn the background into a pseudo engraved stone.

Here it is mostly done. I might add a bit more highlights as the spray fixative darkened it a bit. Sometimes its best not to fuss too long on something and move on to another drawing.

That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)