Mixed Media Realistic Drawing

For this piece I used a picture that I had taken to create a black and white mixed-media work using ink, charcoal and graphite.

To do this, I first chose a picture, changed it to black and white, and printed it in the required dimensions for the piece but scaled down. I then put grids on both the picture and my paper so that I would basically be blowing the image up square by square. I started at the top of the piece using a layer of ink (painted on using an ink brush) covered with charcoal to create the intense black that I wanted. I then outlined the major shapes in graphite and, after using ink for the darkest parts and for stippling (can be seen under the ramp), I began shading in graphite for lighter parts and charcoal for darker parts. The one major part that I used lines for–instead of shading–was the fan that can be seen in the bottom left corner. For that I mainly used graphite for the lines and white charcoal when going over shaded parts.

I chose this picture because not only does it have a full range of value–which is key in a black and white piece–but the shapes were interesting, and combined with the angle from which I took the picture, it made the work challenging. I especially liked drawing the fan and the skateboards in the picture. Creating this piece was also a good way to practice using and get more comfortable with different materials and techniques. Especially, ink and charcoal which were fairly new to me and are somewhat intimidating to work with at first because of how dark they are.