Sunday, March 20, 2016

Let's Get Colorful: Look At This. What Is This?



I did not like this.  I just didn't.  I made the Smarties too small to blend the colors evenly, and then I tried to go back over with the pencils but the pencils wouldn't blend enough and I couldn't get the colors I wanted and the wrapper doesn't even look that good and I wish I just did the Jolly Rancher because there are less colors in that to worry about!! Ugh.  This was very frustrating, and I wish that I'd done a better job, but I'm not sure how I could have done that.  Maybe used the other pastels?  But I really want to learn how to use mine.  I don't know.  I'm just disappointed.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Let's Get Colorful: EGGS



I don't know if I like the one with the orange background better, or just the plain background.  I probably should have made the horizon line straighter, and done more with the surface that they were resting on, and also I should have fixed up the shadows, but I really think that It turned out well!  I love chalk pastels so much. 
    I set down a medium background layer, like what I did with the prismas, and added all other values on top of that.  But I had my big, heavy-duty AC Moore chalk pastels, which meant that layering was really easy, and so was blending. Maybe I would also add some darker values to the green, but I didn't really have any more darker greens, so . . . I don't know.  It came out well, and I really enjoyed drawing it! 

Monday, March 7, 2016

Let's Get Colorful: Prismacolor Practice




Look at my little blue marble! It's so cute and I'm so proud of myself.  I think that this is the first time I've used prismacolors in any serious way.  Also, it's the first time I've shaded in a sphere in a while, so . . .  I really liked how they came out, all things consider.  I think that my layering went well enough, and the use of contrasting colors really improved over the three spheres.  I'm not that good at colors, but I do think that I could get better.  

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Still Life: This Time, It's for Real

Midway through
The End!

1.  Describe the craftsmanship of your drawing.  (Is it clear, clean edges, blended well, smudges, defined space, etc.)
         I think my sense of space was very off, but I think that the picture looks generally how I would like it to look. It looks like how I like my charcoal drawings to look.  Sort of faded, almost, and a little blended, but with enough definition so that people can tell what they're looking at.

2.  Are your values and shadows realistic?  How many values did you include?  How and why are values important?
        I hope my shadows and values are realistic.  I put a lot of effort into them, and tried to include all nine.  I know I have a problem with drawing too darkly in some areas, but I think that everything eventually turned out well, especially after I had help.  I'm especially proud of the two flowers.  I think that if I could have colored the whole piece the way I shaded the roses, it would have looked a lot better.  
        Values are important because without them, it would be very difficult for the viewer to understand what they were looking at.  

3.  Is there a clear source of lighting?  
      Hmmm, I think so?  I think there might be two, actually.  Because we were using the stage lights. So there would be one light in the upper right hand corner, and another in the upper left.  I think the strongest would be in the upper right, at least, that was where it was supposed to be?  With the main highlight hitting on that large swoop of fabric.  I think I accomplished that.  

4.  How important were the compositional sketches?  Explain.  
         I don't know how important they were.  Yes, they were useful in order to be able to get different perspectives of the still life, but at the same time, I don't know how much they did for me.  I could have just gone around and looked at the still life on my own.  The rough, small sketches didn't provide a suitable basis for me to plan my drawing around.  It was a good start, but I needed to do a compositional sketch larger to be able to comprehend what I was drawing. 

5.  How is your final drawing successful?  
        I think that it is mostly successful on the two sides. The values are pretty good, I think, as are some of the objects and the shadows.  Especially the shadow of the rose.  I was really proud of that one.  I don't really like the rest of the drawing though, because I felt like I could have done better, but at the same time I was just hating the project so much while I was doing it. 

6.  Are the proportions, structure, and perspective of the subject correct?
      No. They are not.  I had to draw the picture, then take it back to my table to color it in charcoal, because I just can't do that at a drawing board, and that was probably also a lot of the problem. Also, I was really afraid to make the angel big, which really disrupted the picture.  And, I started to draw one section and then I realized how out of proportion I was being so I had to fill up the rest of the page with more out of proportion stuff.  So, just looking at the drawing everything might look alright, but if you were to compare it to the still life you would greatly disagree. 

7.  Does the placement and grouping of objects create a pleasing arrangement (composition)?  
      I think it does, but that's also very subjective.  It would be a lot more pleasing if I'd actually drawn it proportionally, and if I'd drawn the angel larger, and if I hadn't messed up the fabric.  But, I do think that I chose a good section of the fabric to draw. 

8.  Is there a center of interest and where is it locate? 
        I think the center of interest would be in the lower third, in the middle.  Where the fabric makes a little cave and that coincides with the wing of the angel.  I'm very upset that I messed up the shading there. 

9.  How well did you manage your time and resources throughout the process of creating this drawing? Do you see where you could improve in this area? 
         I did this drawing fairly quickly, but maybe that's a problem.  I should have more patience for the work I do, and not be so frustrated with it.

10.  What challenges did you encounter during this project and how did you overcome them?  
         I encountered many challenges, just with using charcoal.  And my own propensity to shade much more than necessary led to some, um, decreased visibility amongst the subject matter.  I overcame the latter, sort of, but line charcoal will always be really, really annoying.  It's really pretty, though, and I like the results.  

11.  What have you learned during a still life? 
         To pay attention to the relation of things as they correlate to other things, and that space where things aren't is just as important as the spaces were things are.  And, that everything really can be seen as lines.  That's always been difficult for me to understand, but if you, as you sort of have to in a still life, break everything down to its barest components, it's much easier to see. 












Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Shading: Transition Drawing






1.  Explain how value is important in this drawing.
   Value is important in this drawing because the darks and the lights function as lines, sectioning off portions of the bird from other portions.  If this drawing didn't have value then you probably won't be able to differentiate between the different sections of the drawing, and it would just look like an oddly shaped blob.

2. Describe several challenges that you faced while creating this drawing.  What did you do to overcome these obstacles?
      Um, I guess a challenge that I came to was the wing in the last panel?  The perspective was a little off and the wing looks a little weird, but I think I recovered form that one well.  Because, I was looking over top of the crane while I was drawing it, and I sort of had to rearrange it in my mind in order to draw it correctly.  Also, I don't know what's going on in the second panel.  It sort of looks like a slug curled over and died.  I don't think I pushed the values enough there.

3.  How important was it to have crisp, clean edges to your wrapper?
      It was really important to have straight lines. Again, see the second panel.  My lines there got more curved, and it stopped seeming so realistic.  That drawing felt more cartoonish than the rest of the drawings.  I think that the straight lines gave it an edge of realism and made the drawings look more professional.

4. Explain how your interpretation of texture is essential in capturing the look of the object.
      Well, the texture I was drawing was paper, so I had it easy.  I think that I shaded evenly, and had an even mid-tone, which led to a consistency in texture, which is necessary if ones to believe that the origami crane is all made of the same thing.  And I think that greatly added to the look of the object, because the viewer is not focused so much on the texture, but on the shape, which was my purpose.

5. Name three things you would do differently if you were to do this project again.  What did you learn from this drawing?
     If I did this drawing again I would redo panel too, made the shadows better on panel two and three, and I would add more mid-tones to panel one.  But, from this drawing I learned that it is actually very easy to depict an area in lights and darks, without the aid of lines, f you just pay attention to where they are.


Still Life: Compositions






These were five planning compositions we did for planning which part of our table-long still life we would draw.  I did several from one side of the table, just with different angles, and then I moved around the table.  I don't know how great I think these are, but they're just planning sketches, so I think they accomplished their purpose, which was to get me to look at the still life in a way that would be visually interesting.

Shading: Fabric Studies in Prismacolor, Charcoal, and Pencil



Charcoal

Graphite

White Charcoal/Prismacolor
These are three studies we did in preparation for our final shading project.  We were supposed to draw a portion of the fabric in a 5 by 7 area, or at least, that is the size I chose to draw, and experiment with the different mediums we were given to find one we liked the best.