THIS MONTH I’LL BE USING the three-colour combination favoured by artists like Jean-Antione Watteau and Peter Paul Rubens. Colloquially known as trios crayon it requires a black, a white and a coloured pencil – typically a reddish-brown – and mid-tone paper. The black, white and mid-tone paper provide a tonal range for the drawing, while the comparatively saturated red-brown pencil draws the viewer’s attention to areas of interest.
Watteau does this brilliantly in his fast and eloquent figure drawings, picking out hands and faces in red chalk amidst monochromatic drapery while Reubens uses it to guide the viewer’s attention around the features of the face. Originally applied to drawings made in a hard chalk or
