Bargue Copy Work

After reading from a few sites, I found that if I want to learn to render like the masters I should start from the flat and do some basic copy work and Charles Bargue was what everyone seemed to be using. I found the book and ordered it from Dahesh Museum of Art www.daheshmuseum.org. Its now available on Amazon and is an excellent book to start your copy work from. I highly recommend it!

I had never used charcoal before and I found the General's pencils to work the best from 2H (Ext Hard) to 6B (Ext Soft). Get some blenders and a few Kneaded erasers too. Vine charcoal, which although may allow you to get very rich darks, I found to be very messy. So if you do get some, use it sparingly. 

Here is a copy Plate 60 I did 2009. Looking at it now I can see plenty of errors. This is all part of the process. I started with plates 1 through 10 and then skipped around and copied what I thought was interesting.