Dhotel nuancé d'abricot

            I remember well my creation of one of my more famous works called Dhotel nuancé d'abrico. I was a difficult project and exertion to even prepare the surface on which I carved. As you can see from the photograph I have provided above, the drawing surface has been completely blackened. I had to do that myself so I would be able to perfect the exact thickness and texture of my desired surface. The first thing I did was taking a clean canvas and spread a thick layer of black paint. On top of that I put ash, coal dust, sand, and other powders to get the tone of black that I wanted. On this mixture, I placed a strange “apricot” mixture of many colors and then covered it all with more black paint.                        

            At this point, I started actually painting the figure. I used a cream colored paint to paint the background of the head and the body. Then I used a blunt edge to carve in all of the details of the face and the rest of the body using various levels of deepness to show thickness. Afterwards, I went over the colored part with a layer of “apricot” paint to give the man some distinct character and painted in some minute details. As one could imagine, this work took up a lot of my time and I was a little apprehensive of making a mistake. Once I was done, I felt very proud and confident about it.