For this project, we were able to create an original character using whatever design we pleased. I chose to make my own not-so-super super hero. Though he doesn't have a name, he has a super cool robotic arm-gun.
The backstory I created for him is about him training with a genius weapons expert, but when there's a malfunction and he's caught in an explosion, the genius takes matters into his own hands and fits the character with a brand new arm, eye, and section of his brain. The genius effectively saves his life, and with his new arm and abilities, decides he's going to try and help the city and become a hero. Though he doesn't necessarily have 'powers' like Superman or Spiderman, he'd been training with the genius for long enough to become a skilled fighter and an expert in weaponry himself. I loved doing this project because I create characters a lot in my free time, and being able to do it in a more realistic style using what we learned in class was incredibly fun. I wish I'd had more time to work on this so I could have drawn more action shots and dynamic poses of him fighting. I also didn't get a chance to really think out his super-suit, but what I do have I like. I also would have liked to give him a name.
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Though I now know I really, really don't like scratchboard, I can't say doing this wasn't fun. I'm glad I picked a concept that is easy to portray using the method you have to for scratchboard, and also that there wasn't anything too incredibly complicated, but it also makes me a little disappointed that I didn't pick something more challenging.
I learned a lot about scratchboard during the process of this project. It's an interesting thing, frustrating, but still intriguing to try out. Doing this project made me have to think backwards and instead of adding more where there needed to be more, like with graphite for example, you had to take away around the areas that needed to be darker and leave the darker areas alone. It was all rather backwards but once I got the hang of it it wasn't as confusing any more. This artwork isn't really intended to say anything, I just really enjoyed the abstract sort of idea of a girl painting a sky full of stars, and thought what better medium than something that starts out black in the first place. I really enjoyed doing the gesture drawings because I studied a lot about human proportions and being put on a time limit to get them right and having no eraser was a fun challenge. As we continued to do more and more of them, I think they got better and better. The worst one I have pictured above was one of the first I did, and the best was one of the last. I would definitely do this again if I got the chance.
I procrastinated as long as I could before posting this because I really hate how this came out. Over top of the skeleton, the face and proportions don't look that bad, but when separated the face looks sideways to me. And I also don't think it looks like me at all.
Looking back at this project I think that if I had really spent more time both drawing more precisely and looking closer at the details of my own face. This would have made the drawing more realistic and probably look more like my own face. The messy shading and rough lines were also a result of me rushing the project and I wish I'd fixed that as well. I learned a lot about drawing realistic faces leading up to this project, and I think I used what I'd learned well but I wasn't able to quite match all the facial features up together right and also make them look like my own face. Looking back on this project, I like the outcome but I think I could have done much better. I like the values, shading, and technique I used for the most part, but I think taking some more time to sketch out my face and its proportions. I was intimidated by the size of the paper at the beginning of the project and didn't quite know how to start, and it drastically effected the outcome.
During this project, I had to step back a lot and look at what I'd been doing. Both because I wasn't quite sure how to fill up all the space and because the piece was so big I had to stand while I was drawing it rather than sit in my seat. Before I did anything or added to any area on this drawing I had to contemplate how it would affect the rest of the piece and if the eye would be drawn to it or not. Specifically because I wanted the eye to be drawn down from the face to the neck and shoulder and I wasn't quite sure how to achieve that. Like with many of the projects, I got a lot of help from the people at my table. I was lucky that three of my table mates had already taken drawing before and they were really helpful in where I should shade more or less and where needed more detail to fit in. They also were the deciding factor on if my background would work or not, since I was doubtful at first, and I'm glad they convinced me to do the handprints because I love how it looks now with them. Before it looked much too blank. To prepare for our final self portrait, we had to draw ourselves as something mechanical, as a zombie, or making a dramatic expression. I ended up choosing my zombie face, but really wanted to do my expressive one and was torn between picking from the two.
As our class began our portrait unit we had to practice doing specific facial features. I did lots of eyes and noses and mouths as practice for my final piece and it was rather hard to try and draw my own features rather than generic ones.
I really like how this turned out. I had never really used Prisma colored pencils before this and I really like them for creating dimension and shading. Also this is my favorite flavor of dum-dum, so this was a win-win drawing.
During this little project I realized just how hard pastels are to control. Very. I kept getting fingerprints of purple in my green and smudges of green in my orange and it proved very frustrating.
The 'Look at that View!' project was about picking an interesting perspective to draw, and I chose from the back of a horse. I grew up horseback riding and I love to jump, so I thought taking a frame from one of my jumping competitions would be the perfect idea.
I think this piece is probably the beginning of many First-Person point of view things I'll do in the future, as this was really fun and interesting to draw. All the little details I remember about riding horses went into this piece, from how their manes are braided to how their ears perk up before a jump to how I hold my hands when correcting speed and sending the horse in a straight line. It was a really enjoyable piece to work on. In hindsight, I could have fixed plenty of things, like the jumps and the sand, but I do enjoy how this turned out. I hope to go back and work more on it, fine-tune the details and all, one day and use it for a portfolio. During this project I can't decide if having to stare at a piece of chocolate for three days without being able to eat it or having to draw all the little creases in the tinfoil it was wrapped in was more painful.
In the end, I drew the folds and I ate my chocolate, so I'd have to say it wasn't that gruesome after all. I do have to say, I'm not a big fan of drawing from life. I like learning how something looks from all its angles and practicing before creating my own version of that thing in a way I don't have a reference for other than my own skill. It's a challenge for me. But this project was surprisingly enjoyable and almost as challenging. I hadn't drawn a still life since early Middle School before this project and it's not as bad as I remembered. There were also no teddy bears or creepy clown dolls in this still life, and that could also be a very good reason it was better.
While working on this project, I learned quite a lot about shading and have a newfound respect for good old graphite. I originally thought I'd have to go back with charcoal, but I really enjoy how it turned out in the end and decided against it. When I look back at doing this project, I wish I'd picked a different perspective with the deer skull not as centered. I really wanted to draw it, since that was what I'd brought from home, and I guess I got too caught up in trying to get it right to really realize how smack dab in the middle it was. I realized this about halfway through and attempted to balance it out with extra detail on the sides in the umbrella and on the fabric and flowers to the left and right of the skull, but I still think I'd be even better if I'd off-centered the skull. These are the first sketches we did in class of our hands. I usually hate drawing hands, but this was honestly pretty fun and I didn't mind it at all. I was surprised at how much of a difference was made by just drawing the same thing over again, as shown by the last two pictures I have. Doing them in pen also made it so I had to be careful about the lines I drew, since I couldn't erase them, and the drawings ended up with (what I think is) a rather cool looking sketchy sort of style to them.
Drawing without looking was interesting as well, since it's such a backwards, foreign concept, and it made me focus a whole lot more on my hand than I ever had before that's for sure. I was also surprised by the outcome, as they were better than I expected, though they were still far from correct. Vine charcoal is the most fun media I've ever used to shade. I'd never even heard of it before this class and now I'm so glad I have! It's really fun and almost therapeutic with how you pull the color down from the original line you draw. It was really easy to achieve all the values I needed and creating a smooth transition between darks and lights was surprisingly simple. Another classmate of mine is completely against charcoal of all kinds and doesn't believe me on how enjoyable this medium is to work with.
Sure, I came out of the class with stained hands, but it was worth it. I'm really proud of how this turned out. I'm really glad I chose to use the vine charcoal over graphite and will probably favor it over graphite for shading big, soft things from now on. Not only was this the first time in a long time that I've drawn on black paper, it's also the very first time I've had to draw a curled up ribbon. Though at the start it was frustrating and I had to do a fair share of erasing, I eventually was able to really enjoy the outcome, especially of the second white ribbon (in white charcoal) and the green ribbon, which is still unfinished.
Also, I noticed the majority of the class preferred the Prismacolor pencils over the white charcoal, but I'd have to disagree. I found doing soft, gradual shading in charcoal is 10 times easier than with pencils, and the outcome usually looks less obviously drawn because the strokes are all blended out. Having done art almost all my life, I've had to shade plenty of shapes. Plenty. So this little project was a good dose of practice for me when I had to shade with pen and two kinds of charcoal (vine charcoal is my new favorite!) instead of the usual good ol' HB pencil.
I also had to do a value chart with two different kinds of pencils ( When I heard we had to put our backpacks on the table, I was far from a happy camper. But, that being said, I was pleasantly surprised when drawing the folds of the jacket and backpack really weren't all that complicated and ended up being kind of fun. I've never been good at precision and drawing exact little details, so the sketchy lines of a contour line drawing were really enjoyable.
I'm glad that Ms. Rossi didn't make us draw the pattern on the backpack, though. The backpack we drew (mine) has a really geometric design at the bottom that would have been absolute torture to do in contour line. For this drawing I sat in the corner of the room and focused on the jacket hooks on the wall. If I could, I would redo this piece in a heartbeat. The only part of it that I like is the jacket hanging on one of the hooks, since I like how I did the folds of the fabric and the feel of gravity I portrayed with the lines.
The rest of the drawing is disproportional and generally disappointing to me, to be frank. |