Research point - Odion Redon

I have been looking at the Noir pictures of Odilion Redon today.He had a really interesting way of working. It seems he usually used a cream paper support, and covered it with charcoal powder and then scraped and scratched and scrabbled and wiped and erased the surface to produced various mid tones, He then used soft pastel and compressed charcoal to create darker areas. He also used his fingers, both fingertips and finger nails, a lot to make a further variety of marks. His finger marks can be seen in several of his works.
He wanted to ceate mysterious and ambiguos spaces to stimulate the imagination. He draws us into the melancholy depths of his work , where the light just catches a figure or some detail but does not define it.