Charcoal is one of my stepping off points and one of my ways of simplifying. When I am in doubt about how to approach responding to a place or situation, charcoal is often where I will start. A few strokes on paper, and spray of water, and something will emerge. My sketchbooks and folders contain a lot of these images, which may be beautiful in themselves, and may also be stepping off points into abstraction in paint or print, often though echoing a charcoal image in a monoprint, in a collagraph print or in intaglio. Sometimes I will create 3D models from drawings and paint from those.
