William Rose

A Day in the Life

This piece can be seen at: Room 39

charcoal
framed
not for sale

Since I began drawing and painting, most of my work has been figurative, with an immersion in the seemingly perpetual expressiveness of the female face – which I, among countless artists throughout history, have found to be endlessly mystifying and impossibly captivating.  Aside from commissioned portraits, I really have no formula for choosing a subject.  My choices are usually intuitive, not planned.  I see a face, a figure, a picture, a location and something detonates inside me, whacks me across the head, and shouts – "did you see that?!"  And it may not be that specific face or that scene or moment, but an idea sparks, and I'm simply compelled to go with it.  I know I'm on the right track when it becomes frustratingly impossible to express in words what I hope to convey on paper.  Only recently, as I've begun to work in oil, have I found myself consciously planning out a series of work.  But ultimately, whether planned or discovered, it's the light that grabs me.  When the light is there – and I don't mean correct light, I mean… perfect light – I'm entranced.  I can't think, and I can't look away.  Those are moments I strive to capture.

In recent years, my primary media of choice has been charcoal and I use all types – from vine and willow to compressed, pencils and occasionally powdered or crushed charcoal.  My love of charcoal stems mostly from a passion I have for all things black and white – drawings, paintings, photos, movies.  When produced well, black and white often feels more dramatic – and real to me than similar images in color.  And the earth provided artists with the perfect black and white medium – charred wood.

When I first discovered charcoal, after a couple of years working with graphite, I used it exclusively for loose sketching.  Then I began to love charcoal, and soon sketches became drawings, then the drawings became larger and heavier – it began to feel more like painting than drawing – using my fingers, hands and just about anything else within reach to apply the charcoal.  In this process, I discovered the seemingly unlimited variety of tones and textures that are possible by combining different types of charcoal and media.  The relationship was sealed.

Like many artists today, I work from both life and photographs or some combination of the two.  And while I truly enjoy the process of working from life, there are many instances where the subject I wish to interpret will simply not allow it.  And often, the expressiveness in the eyes that I'm trying to reproduce is quite elusive, and difficult – if not impossible, to capture from life.  Personally, I believe if you have spent significant time behind a lens, (and I was practically born with a camera attached to my hand), you hopefully understand the limitations of photography in comparison to life.  If those differences escape you, I wouldn't recommend working from photos.