Charcoal illustrations

The world is a BIG place, and in it we have the rich and the poor, the healthy and those dying from preventable diseases, the happy and the depressed, the fat and the starving majority found in Africa, and Asia. This was a depressing illustration to create, based on the late Kevin Carter's famous photograph. May his soul rest in the arms of our Lord. Being an African I have seen first hand some of this suffering, that pregnant mothers and society are faced with during high inflation, corrupt goverments and drought. May God heal Africa.

A2 is a VERY BIG canvas to work on (for me) when one is illustrating keys! This was my first charcoal piece, before I did the other two. Ever since then I really love working with "The black chalk" (as I call it). I had to wrestle with a massive mental block before I could do this piece. I never thought I could enlarge such simple object to such a big scale. This is the piece that introduced me to charcoal's great abilities.

Someone told me that this piece kind of reveals to people my 'animation side'. I really enjoyed the strokes that went into these wild stallions. Out of the three, this artwork took me the least time but involved the most intimate strokes I've ever made in charcoal. The Starving child/ opharn was depressing but I really really poured my heart into it especially when it came to the kinky hair and the exposed rib cage. The keys in the middle of the blog were overwhelming since I had to enlarge something that fits into your pocket to fill an A2 page, but these horses were..... fun! If you look closely the strokes on the horses spell ou my name. Enjoy the rest of my blog.

Cheers
Tafadzwa