Drawing With Children: Les 5 Conte Crayons

Now we are getting down to the real meat of this book. The basics have been covered and now we are given some instruction and direction on what to try after we have tired of markers.

The first medium mentioned is Conte Crayon....this I admit is not my favorite way to draw. It is messy and I don't have much control. I have done some work with the conte crayons and to me, they are as messy as charcoal. You smudge and smear and then when you are finished, the end product, even if you have used a fixative, needs to be stored carefully or they make a big mess. Now I know there must be artists that enjoy these crayons but I gave them a try and I have moved on.

If you use the kneaded eraser that they suggest, you will want to keep it for using exclusively with the conte crayons otherwise you will make a smudgy mess on your next pencil project.....yes, I am speaking from experience.

I would not use these crayons with little ones. They break easily and they will probably not like the results. I would save these for at least middle school age children, if not high school....or better yet, college. :)

Gesture drawing of my cat done with conte crayon

I would not recommend conte crayons for your nature journal. About the only thing I like to use conte crayons or charcoal for is to make "gesture drawings". Drawing with Children talks a little bit about gesture drawing on pages 180-181. Basically it means a quick kind of drawing that you look quickly back and forth between the model and your drawing.

Next time I will write about chalk pastels which is the next medium that is discussed in chapter five.

Here are the links to the other lessons in this series:
Lesson One
Lesson Two
Lesson Three
Lesson Four

Barb-Harmony Art Mom