Technique SANGUINE

SANGUINE

Technique SANGUINE

 Sanguine or red chalk is chalk of a reddish-brown colour, so called because it resembles the colour of dried blood. The pigment employed is usually a chalk or clay containing some form of iron oxide. The natural sanguine chalk originally comes from some mines in Italy . Sanguine was used extensively by 15th- and 16th-century artists such as Leonardo da Vinci (who employed it in his sketches for the Last Supper), Michelangelo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto.

It has been popular for centuries for drawing (where white chalk only works on coloured paper), and the term also describes a drawing done in sanguine. The word comes via French from the Italian sanguigna and originally from the Latin sanguis.

Sanguine lends itself naturally to sketches, life drawings, portraits, nude.... It is ideal for rendering modeling and volume, and human flesh. In the form of wood-cased pencils and manufactured sticks, sanguine may be used similarly to charcoal and pastel. As with pastel, a mid-toned paper may be put to good use. A fixative may be applied to preserve the finished state of the drawing. Sanguine is also a family of pigments of red earth shades (where it takes the origin of its name in French). Sanguines are also available in several other tones such as orange, tan, brown, beige.