For this drawing, I wanted to do a realistic drawing. Around the time when I started it, that was when the weather was starting to get colder and it made me think of fall. What says the season of fall more than pumpkins? Nothing.

I started with the first pumpkin that is in the center of the paper. You have to draw the shapes of the pumpkins and gourds before you do the shading of the pumpkin. I used mainly a 2B graphite pencil. When doing the shading between the two pumpkins to show the outline and depth I used a softer graphite pencil. For the different shading parts I used a blending stump and a kneaded eraser.

When looking at this piece, I think of sitting by a warm cozy room and smelling a pumpkin spice candle. This drawing should make you think about the Autumn season. Personally, I enjoy going to a pumpkin patch and seeing the variety of pumpkins, and with this drawing it shows a small part of that variety.

Doing the rock wall in the background was difficult for me. I was going to do the generic brick wall, but I did the wood plank floor. So doing straight lines for the floor and the brick wall would have been too many squares. The shading on the rock wall was difficult for me because I wanted this drawing to be realistic looking so the rocks have to be very dark and have to have highlights. If I redid this drawing I would redo the wood planks. I feel like I could have done a better job with shading on that part.

This drawing is supposed to have a realistic look to it. I really like the look of all of the pumpkins and gourds together with the backgrounds. Drawing with graphite pencils is my favorite type because I can focus on the shading and realistic part of drawings.

My first project drawing I did was the animal. For this idea I wanted to do some sort of minimalistic drawing of an animal. Before I started drawing I was mainly set on drawing a cow or some sort of a deer. Then I saw my inspiration photo, which was a drawing of a jellyfish made with certain sized dots.

Using black paper, I wanted the jellyfish color to pop. I used a white gel pen for highlights on top of the bright colored charcoal. Every jellyfish is supposed to be unique. Like a snowflake almost, where none of them are the same.

My thought process for this drawing was mainly just to do something fun. To me there wasn't really a symbolism but I thought that using newer materials would be a fun challenge for me. I struggled with figuring out what to do next to make the drawing that much better. I asked a few people for advice on what to do with my drawing when I was stuck. If I started over I would put a cloudy background to make it look more like a fever dream or like a fantasy. I would also get rid of harsh lines I did with the gel pen.

I do really like the bright colors against the black paper with the white highlights. I am glad I chose to do a big paper so the designs can really be shown. I was not really focusing on a realistic standpoint. I was mainly just going for crazy patterns with the bright colors.