For one of our assignments this semester, we had to do a self-portrait using the grid method and also using transparency paper and a projector. The paper that we had to use was very large and while trying to crop my reference photo, I had a hard time getting the scale to work out. There are a few things I wish I should have thought of while taking my reference photo, how light/dark the background was in comparison to me. I also wished I had made my clothes darker in the final piece as well, to offset the brightness of the background. I was really worried that I would mess up the face, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible. All in all, I feel really good about the outcome of my Self-Portrait.
For our final assignment of the semester, we had to pick one subject and draw at least 30 drawings. For mine, I chose to do a study on one of the cow skulls that are ever-present. While doing the series I found this really neat purple paper that had two different textures, it took really well with ink, especially when I layered the ink. I had a really hard time getting started with this because I really didn’t have any idea of what to do. I knew I wanted to do some type of still life. At first, I made one with some flowers and rocks and other things I found, but it seemed to busy for me. I landed on the skull after talking with my professor.
I really liked playing around with the ink on the purple paper, especially with the white and blue inks. I wanted to try and do something different with every piece. I also tried to use every material in my kit as well, from charcoal to the different colors of Conte crayon, to using the ebony and graphite pencils, to sharpies and ink. my favorite piece is the last one above. I did an ink wash with some leftover ink I had after working one night, vaguely following the movement of the skull. Then using white ink and a dip pen, I went over the wash and tried to do a sketch-like effect using different cross-hatching. I really liked doing this series because I really had to think about what materials worked well together and also getting really good at drawing a cow skull from different angles.
For this project, we had to create a pair, this could be light vers dark, life vers death, etc. For this, I wanted to play with the idea of self-identity and how one views themselves. I used my own hand for this project and took a simple picture of the hand against a mirror at an angle that showed both the “real” hand and the “reflected” hand. I mostly used vine, willow, and white charcoal on the left side of the composition. Then on the right, I used ink wash, graphite pencils, and darker pencils. I tried to create a lot of detail and movement with the shawl in the reflection, but I should have tried to make some of the shadows/backgrounds a bit darker to create more contrast, and I really should have played around with and practice trying to create light glares on the right side so that it was easier to tell that that was supposed to be what was seen inside the mirror and that it wasn’t just two different hands against each other, but rather one hand but two different views.
I went through a lot of different ideas before I landed on just using hands and just changed the medium and background of the two different sides.
Our first assignment of the year was a study on Light, Line, and Space. I chose to do my assignment of a still life of two Cow skulls that was set up. At first, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish the piece because I hadn’t done something that big since the last semester. I used vine charcoal and charcoal pencil. I tried to create movement by rubbing the charcoal out in one direction, but I wasn’t able to create enough shadows to contrast the lighter parts of the picture. Others said that they really liked how I was able to manipulate the charcoal to create the movement, and also how I did the background. The background was done last minute with an ink wash. I tried to make sure that the ink helped with the remaining white space around the main skulls.
