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THIS PAGE - MY EXPERIENCES WITH CONTE CRAYONS
LINKS TO OTHER CONTE CRAYONS PAGES BELOW
TIPS --- CONTE CRAYONS & DRAWINGS (USE, ----PAGE ONE OF TIPS ---- PAGE TWO OF TIPS ---- PAGE THREE OF TIPS
THE RUMOR ABOUT NOT MAKING
NICOLAS CONTE AND
CONTE CRAYONS WITH DIFFERENT NAMES LINKS TO WEBSITES WITH CONTE DRAWINGS
CONTE VIDEOS - SAMPLES OF CONTE
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MY (JEAN VINCENT'S) EXPERIENCES |
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I'm still learning to use Conte crayons even though I am running out of them and it is now almost impossible to find the "colorful" kind sold individually in this country -- though I understand this is not the case in at least some other countries. I used the basic colors ("sketching" crayons) in school, which is all I think they had then -- black, white, and some earth colors, in life drawing classes decades ago, but not since (and, by the way, I still had good-sized pieces of Conte crayons left from those days when I started in again using Conte crayons - in 2000 - but they were hard and "waxy" and unusable). However, now I am quite interested in using the "sketching" kind again (not my old waxy ones, though!).
I also did some painting (as in, with paint - acrylic paints, that is) in school many years ago, after having taken classes where I learned quite a bit about mixing different values and hues of colors -- We did a huge amount of that sort of thing (besides, also, learning about design and composition). However, after I changed my major (a very bad idea, looking back), I went on to do only pencil drawings, pen and ink drawings, and occasionally colored pencil drawings -- but, generally, over the many years when I was not fully dedicated to art (because I was dedicated to supporting myself), I did very little work with colors, and therefore when I started in with Conte crayons (in all colors) in the year 2000, I had to start from scratch with regard to using them -- and I'm still studying this subject (and will always be, I am sure).
In the summer of 1999 I was finally ready to commit myself to art again, and I have been working at it ever since. At first, I drew with drawing pencils (not colored), but then my daughter sent me a box of 48 Conte crayons. I was amazed to get this gift ("out of the blue"), in the first place, and I was also amazed that Conte crayons came in all of those wonderful colors.
For weeks I didn't know what to do with them, as I didn't want to waste those beautiful Conte crayons when I needed to learn so much about using color - so I did learn about color, and finally started in with my first drawing, which was of an apple -- a real apple, that I had right here in this room where I'm typing this -- That's when I started to "see" color as I had never seen it before. It was a red apple, but now that I was more aware of such things, I saw very easily the other colors that were involved - Not only was it not entirely "red" - when looked at carefully - it was receiving the yellow light from a nearby lamp, pale blue light from a window, the reflection of the color of the cloth it was sitting on (I have forgotten what color that cloth was), and so on -- and all of this in addition to the way the values were affected by these same kinds of influences. By seeing all of these things, no matter that I was just beginning to use color with some thought and study, I was able to make a semblance of an apple that looked "real," though not "finished" or "polished," of course. I was very happy with this development, and I have continued working with Conte crayons ever since then.
As of now, I have made hundreds of Conte crayon pictures, and I have learned a lot on the way to where I am (yet, I feel I am just at the beginning of the road to wherever I'm going). At first, while primarily I was trying to learn composition and the use of color, I was very tentative about what I was doing, and called everything I did "practice work." It's still true that I'm always doing "practice work," as I am always trying to get better at this, but at least now I do look at each drawing that I intend to do as a complete picture, not just a "sketch" for a picture, and I think carefully about it as I compose it (usually with vine charcoal on scratch paper, to start with), before I start in drawing it on "good" paper.