Luke Roth "Eminem"

13in x 13in, Graphite, 2021

When I first started this class I wanted to draw a number of different artists/rappers. One of the first ones that came to mind for me personally was Eminem. In my opinion, he’s been one of the most timeless rappers in the game and never really fell off. In terms of how I went about making this piece, I started with a grid and a sketch on top. Once I was happy with the sketch, I darkened the lines and began hatching away from the bottom up. Once I started shading and hatching, the rest of the piece just kinda came together. Honestly there's not a ton of meaning behind this piece. As mentioned before, Eminem has always been one of my favorite rappers; so for me it was a no brainer to include him in my portfolio. When people look at this piece, I want them to recognize how he has consistently been a prominent artist despite his age/differentiating style of music. For me, the hardest part about this piece was making the proportions right, (something I never really ended up finishing). The actual hatches and shading were done pretty well, but I wasn't really sure where to put certain values, and how to approach some of his facial features. The piece was intended to look realistic, however I don’t really think I ended up achieving that. With that in mind, this drawing reflects my own personal style because unlike most “realistic” portraits, it was shaded primarily with hatches and sketchy lines.

Luke Roth "Anatomy Sketches"

14in x 21in, Graphite, 2021

The idea for this piece came from comments other people had made about my previous projects. Along with that, I was beginning to get frustrated trying to complete big projects, so I took a step back and resorted to something I was more comfortable with, (gestural sketching & anatomy based drawings). In all of these drawings there is virtually no shading present. I started with a collection of sketches I had drawn earlier this year and simply transferred them over onto one large sheet of paper. From there, I just perfected the sketches and made an attempt to conjoin them into one piece/flow kinda thing. As mentioned above, this piece had minimal thought behind it. I just wanted to draw something that I actually wanted to draw, and something that I was actually comfortable with. When people look at this piece, I want them to recognize how art is subjective, and doesn't need to be flawless in order to warrant positive recognition. The most difficult part about this piece for me was making all of the sketches look like they actually belong together. After taking reference from various different parts of the body, I found it kinda difficult to conjoin the piece and make it look more unified. If I were to restart, I would have made the piece more organized and planned it out ahead of time. This piece wasn’t really intended to be realistic or surreal. I just wanted to do something where I could draw the bare minimum and still get my point across. I would like to think that when looking at these sketches someone can tell what I was going for.