CREATE CHARACTERS FROM AN ABSTRACT

Join ERIC MESSINGER as he helps bring out the intuitive side of your creativity with a walkthrough of his spectacular and spontaneous charcoal art

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Dust off your charcoal and grab your sense of fun, because we're about to go on an adventure to reclaim your artistic spontaneity and intuitive creativity! I've been a passionate creator of monsters and otherworldly beings since I was old enough to pick up a crayon. While I'm a mild-mannered graphic designer by day, I explore the worlds of darker creatures by night.

For many years, I thought my art had to look like everyone else's to be successful. I started by colouring at Image Comics in the 1990s and went almost exclusively into comic-based digital work for many years after.

When I hit a low point in my artistic career, I returned to the traditional mediums I knew best: pencil and charcoal. In charcoal powder, I discovered the power of starting with an abstract, and it lit my imagination on fire. This built up my ability and confidence to solve problems on the fly. With my artistic intuition now rebooted, the creatures from the other side began to line up and knock on my brain. Each of them starts with a charcoal abstract to form a bridge between their dark universe and our own.

This workshop can be used to find or clarify your artistic voice, help remove creative blocks, discover and develop new characters, and create finished pieces. Based on questions I've received from my YouTube videos, this process will require less effort with a solid foundation in anatomy and knowledge of how to use value to create shape and composition.

I'll take you through the process step by step, from how to mount your paper onto a board to creating your abstract, what to look for within it, how to use brushes and erasers to pull out what you see, and using value and composition to create a focal point.