04. Blind Contour Observational Drawing

Artist Statement

For this piece we were tasked in creating a drawing with one consistent contour line; our main subject being animal figurines. I decided to focus on a sheep figurine and rotate it in multiple directions and forms to get it in different perspectives for my piece. I started out by choosing a thin black ink pen to make my continuance line and contour. Following the outlines of the sheep that I then arranged it in different forms, I was able to achieve front, back, and side facing forms in my final piece; overlapping the majority of them because I liked the layering effect that it gave everything. The figures are focused towards the center of the page, leaving a good part of my piece of paper unused; but I like how the blank space influences the piece. I think because it's such a active illustration in its own right the white space complements it well. I did add in some color though, but I decided to keep it fairly simple. Using watercolor and sticking with warmer tones, since sheep wool is such a warm material, I did some basic shading with these colors on my overlapping forms of the sheep. Using slightly different colors for each figure, just so that the separation between each sheep could be seen more clearly, I overall love how the coloring came out. Looking at the final piece, with the blended elements such line, color and space, I think everything fits together nicely.

Since this piece was created in such a short time and did not receive any sort of drafting beforehand, it's easy to say that this piece didn't evolve much; since I didn’t have any sort of idea where I was going with it! I don't think I’ll be coming back to revise this piece, because as I mentioned above, I really like how it came out. Maybe I would go back in with water color and make the colors a bit more pigmented, but I think I’d leave the background blank since in my opinion it complements the figures so well.