Fumée 22cc1

Étienne Gros uses smoke as the main material for his drawings, directing sheets over the flame of a paraffin lamp. The soot deposited by the carbon creates delicate, nuanced shapes.
This technique uses neither brushes nor pencils. The artist refrains from any retouching or gumming, leaving the smoke to sculpt the forms in a random and natural way.
In his smoke drawings, although the technique is mainly monochrome, Etienne Gros sometimes adds touches of warm colour to enhance the purity of the line and bring the body fragments to life.