Time Capsules

My time capsule drawings are drawings that I can look back on at the end of this art course and see how I've improved and what skills have changed. The cropped self portrait is the portion of my face that I could see looking into the small circle mirror that sits on my desk, my hand in an interesting gesture is a contour line drawing of my hand giving the "OK" sign, and my regularly depended upon object is a multi-media drawing of my water bottle. I chose to use the circle mirror to draw my reflection because I use it every single morning or whenever I'm getting ready to go out. I did the "OK" sign because I liked the way it looked in the perspective I would draw it from. The object I regularly depend on is truly my water bottle because I drink a lot of water and I bring it everywhere with me.

I used graphite, a tortillon, a white eraser, and a mirror to create my self portrait, colored pencil for my hand, and colored pencil and Sharpie to make my object drawing.

To begin the self-portrait, I started by sketching the general shape and dimensions of my face and the curved line where the edge of the mirror cut off my face. I then drew in the more precise details and used the tortillon to create the shadows of my face and the eraser to create the highlights. If I were to go further with this portrait, I would incorporate some form of background.

When I began the drawing of my hand, I was getting caught up in the details of my fingers and using quick gestural movements. I decided to take a step back and create a contour line drawing, solely focusing on the shape and curves of my hand. I originally planned on tracing the graphite lines over with only blue, but then decided to add a warm color and liked the way I could blend the colors together where they met to create a purple transition color. My next steps would be to add a color or pattern to the background.

With the bottle sitting in front of me, I sketched out its shape and the shapes of the stickers I had stuck on it. I was planning on doing another contour line drawing, but I instead wanted to create a more gentural piece. I used colored pencils to color the body of the water bottle, avoiding the spaces where the stickers would be. I layered on several colors and purposely didn't blend them together well and only colored in one direction, coloring outside the lines in several places. I then chose a bold color to make the stickers abstract by mirroring the curve of the line and adding too-long lines on the outer edge of the bottle. For the lid, I used a fine-point Sharpie to outline and create depth using line. I added the border after completing the subject of the drawing because I wanted the object to look like it was coming out of it. Finally, for the background, I chose to do a design that I recently started doodling on several of my school papers. I also chose to have this design break the border in several places. If I were to do something further with this drawing, I would add hints of color to the background to tie it in with the color in the bottle.