Creating characters of my own were always a passion of mine, and being able to do it as a school project made it twice as fun. As usual, I started out with my drafts, which I used tracing paper for body structuring, layering, etc. My assignment was to create one good, and one evil character. I started by drawing different body types on the tracer paper for each character. after that I experimented with head shapes and body sizes. Eventually I developed characteristics for each of the creations, now I just needed to combine them for each character to create the right one. I started with the villain, and for him I wanted to have a type of "telekinesis" ability, where he can shift and change objects with his mind. I wanted to give him a unique slim look, and make his stance seem...controlling. I know that I need more practice with body structuring because a lot of my peers pointed out flaws in my work. I is still very fun to create my own beings though, I definitely think I will be doing ore of this in the future. This villain can create or dismantle any piece of metal, which can be seen as flaws in the hero's eyes because not everything is made of metal. My second character I decided to go with a "sporty" ball player that can manipulate the elements (mainly fire & ice). The way I've designed him is similar to the villain in that he does not look like the stereotypical hero. He seems more like the underdog, or vigilante. I wanted to try something new and this idea swelled in my head, and I had to get it out. This hero's power combats against the villain's powers, and being a baseball player, he can hit flaming/freezing baseballs. He enjoys wearing his uniform on a daily basis to show his passion for the sport. Strangely enough I just realized the characters powers closely resemble that of the X-men. It's not very original for powers, but it's a start. The villain has that similar to "Magneeto" and the hero to "Storm." Well I really enjoyed being able to create these characters purely from my imagination, which I believe is the best kind of art. I find it more enjoyable when I can create my own stories and characters from my imagination. Taking photographs and drawing from life is cool, but it doesn't illustrate the potential of what an artist can truly do. When working with these character designs I really try to make them as cartoony, but at the same time, realistic as well.
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This is a still life picture made from black & white charcoal pencils. All these objects are things brought in by one of my fellow classmates. This really helped because the array of things she brought really widened our view of choices. The basis for this project was to pick a still life section to draw, but also have an interesting placement to the picture so it would look right.
I like charcoal because it is one of the easiest mediums to achieve dark values with little effort. Since pencils are grey, and charcoal black, pressing down on the charcoal the same you would a pencil, results in much darker strokes. The problem with this medium is that charcoal has a tendency to smear on the paper if you're not careful. Another thing is that where areas of light shading need to be made, the user must carefully apply the charcoal so that the value is not to dark, and the strokes are not defined (smooth). The upside to charcoal is blending. Of course this is optional for the user, but blending with charcoal is as easy as smudging with your finger. Pencil, on the other hand, needs to be blended using a tortillion/other tools. Pencil can be blended with the finger, but if the user needs to erase, it will be harder to make the marks come out of the paper because of the oils from your fingers. I like the turnout of this picture, it just seems weird sometimes having bits of negative space when the rest of the photo is crowded with objects. I guess that's why this 'placement' rule is so important, otherwise the viewer could either become distracted or bored with your art. Charcoal has helped me control my sense of value, and make me less scared of going dark. Exaggerated shadows that are super dark are often times better than the actual picture. This effect stresses realism and emphasis to the viewer, which creates a better atmosphere for the piece. I chose to draw a brown-paper bag progressively getting smashed. Everyone else drew the Hershey kiss, and I already drew a well-detailed kiss. The paper bag is interesting because the shadows are similar to that of fabric. The shadows must be placed accordingly, or else the drawing will fail to look like a bag. The difference between the paper bag and fabric is the lighting is more distinctive and shadows not as dark. Folds of fabric create nice dark shadows, however, paper has minor folds that create tinted shadows and blotches of shade. This is much harder to accomplish because shading the bag is like making smooth gradients with the pencil. After evaluating the aspects of the piece, I feel that the paper bag is an overall good still-life object to work with. Shading it has taught me to use better methods when using pencil so I can make my shadows more realistic. The more the bag gets crushed, the easier it is to capture the shape and shading.
Here's a Hershey's kiss being unwrapped that I drew with a variety of charcoal, and some pencil. I drew this on gray-fiber paper so there is texture in some areas. The difference from the first and second image is the blending I did. After blending some of the black areas, I felt that there wasn't that "metal" effect was looking for. I continued to blend and decided to layer more charcoal on top of those blended areas to define them properly. This gave the perfect touch of a "foil" aspect and it looks almost real now. If I had to touch up anything it would have to bee the wrapper ribbon because it doesn't exactly look like a paper ribbon.
Mixing in different colors really does make a big difference, especially with prisma colors. There is a major difference between these first two images, can you tell? In the second image there is purple in areas that are very dark, however the first image only has shades of green, with tads of yellow. The difference is amazing, and the mixture makes the piece almost come to life. I am so glad I took Mrs. Rossi's advice. The deep purples work complimentary towards the greens and creates the illusion of a shadow. The deep shadows working against the bright highlights really emphasizes the image of fabric to the viewer.
Drawing and/or shading highlights on certain objects can be tricky. In this piece I used Prisma-colored chalk pastels to make this paper ribbon. The main trick for prisma colors is to mix colors you wouldn't normally mix to achieve an even greater affect. This style will also be shown in future pieces as I work with this medium.
To get the basic shape of the ribbon I first draw the contour of the ribbon with a chalk pencil, very lightly. After this I pick a color I want my ribbon to be and I start coloring. After a light coat of the basic color I then take a darker color of that shade and look at where my dark spots are. Once I've shaded the darker areas I push my lights and my darks. In this case I added some white where the spotlights hit the ribbon, and then black where the shadows were. To finish the piece I blended all of the colors to create a smooth transition between shades. figureportraiturebackpackstill-lifeAll these drawings are "modified" contour drawings. That is when your working with your object and looking at your paper, but you still keep the work limited to one line only. When you make modified contours it is much easier for the artist to lift his/her utensil a few times and start back on that spot without any sign of it. However, blind contour drawings are usually one line because it is difficult to lift the utensil and place it in the same spot again, without looking at the paper.
These are blind contour drawings, which means that we had to look at our hand and draw it in one fluent line, but not look back down at our paper. I like the way these turned out because even though they are very misshapen, you can still see the figure each hand was making, and that's the most important part. I have found blind contours to be a peaceful media to use because there isn't that anxiety you get when working with a detailed drawing. The turn out is rewarding if the artist knows how to keep a steady hand and focus on the contour lines seen by the naked eye.
This was our class' first assignment. We had to draw our hand, in shading, with as much detail as possible. We had to do the same thing with drawing a corner/part of the classroom. These were done in pencil on manilla paper. Being the skill level I am at, this task was no challenge, but it did take some time to complete because I wanted to get all the details in. Working with pencil is relatively easy for a beginner, but to get down all the techniques for shading properly is an acquired trait.
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May 2015
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