Michelangelo Red Chalk Art

The art of Michelangelo has a three-dimensional form to his two-dimensional drawings and paintings. It is easy to see that Michelangelo is more naturally a sculptor than anything else because his pictures, as well as his paintings, are somewhat exaggerated as if they are sculptures themselves only two-dimensional. His subjects in his art defined with their chiseled features with one colored chalk with the creamy tone of the page with some white added for the highlights of the flesh. During his early career as an artist, his drawings drawn in pen and ink show diagonal lines in both directions demonstrate a technique called cross-hatching. Subsequently, he started using chalk more often later on into his career with three colors black, white …show more content…
In observation, this drawing medium was the "red chalk, and earth pigment formed from clay colored by iron oxide, is one of the oldest drawing media, but it did not become widespread in Italy until the early 16 century." Iron oxide sounds like a great way to get that flesh tone that was famous in Michelangelo's drawings, but it might be too toxic for the artist today. "The variations in color in some of the red chalk studies such as the Haarlem drawing for the figure of Haman in the Sistine Chapel vault has led to the suggestions that Michelangelo was adding accents in a stick of chalk of a darker shade." This predicament could be right in trying to replicate his style of drawing it was hard to come close to the tone shown in his drawing. His drawings often show one color such as black or red in different shades but trying to replicate Michelangelo's style was difficult to get the look of the picture just right. An artist could correct this problem with two additional colors that were needed to be brought into this drawing to look like as accurate as Michelangelo drawing in …show more content…
During the process of doodling in this similar style of Michelangelo was difficult with Conte crayon because it was not the same medium he used during that time. Conté, also known as Conté sticks or Conté crayons, is a drawing medium composed of compressed powdered graphite or charcoal mixed with a wax or clay base, square in cross-section. Conté crayons had the advantage of being cost-effective to produce, and easy to manufacture in controlled grades of hardness. Comparing my drawing done in Michelangelo’s style to his drawing style was hard until his advice to draw and not stop came into play. Therefore, a natural build up with the Conte crayon started to create something beautiful with the layers of the medium. The chalk artists used during that time was not the same medium we have now. Also considering the fact, Michelangelo added substances to his artist chalk during those time that artists do not have access to