Charcoal: Imprints and Found Forms

Each time I draw I mix around a bit with materials and today I worked with charcoal again - and stumbled across a complete happy accident.

Wanting to save paper, I shaded a charcoal 'wash' on the back of an existing ink drawing which I talked about in a previous post. In washing the charcoal over the top of the other side, it picked up the form of the ink drawing on the reverse, creating a really interesting impression.

Below is the result of me turning the paper 90 degrees and working over the top of this impression. In hindsight, I should have kept the orientation and seen what happens if I evolve what's there with a fresh layer of material. Here, what I have drawn over the top somehow competes. But layering in this way is still something I want to work on.

Having pressed hard with the charcoal on the figure form, I rubbed it out with a cloth. I like the feeling of fluidity it gives the figure, as if they are in the process of moving or having just moved and the accidental lines that run horizontally, appear to be wrapping and joining the figure with the form.

I then experimented with another layer, this time with pencil and did some face like forms. I like the variation of thickness, with the pencil obviously being much thinner, but I'm not sure the forms themselves quite work. It made me question how can I layer drawings in a way that creates something unified but also hard to 'pin down'?