10. Scholastic #2

Artist Statement

The first piece in our independent scholastic competition study, students were tasked to either follow a scholastic prompt or begin to develop/brainstorm for their artist portfolio. Looking through each of the prompts, I wasn't really inspired by any of them; so I decided to focus on my artist portfolio.

There's a piece from last year, The Doberman, that I really enjoyed making; drawing the crow bodies being one of my favorite parts. Though I don't know completely yet, I feel like I'm going to be doing something bird related for my upcoming concentration. Though this piece is a lot more fantasy based then I'd probably be going for in my portfolio, I wanted to reintroduce myself to drawing feathers and wings since I hadn't done it since last year. I believe if I did something really complicated after not handling this level of design in awhile it the overall product would have not turned out well. This was a good opener to hopefully start my concentration.

Using pen ink and colored pencils, I first start out with a base sketch in graphite. Just doing the outline of the body and the feathers, I never draw the individual fibers of the feathers when sketching because it just adds on more time to the project; the outline offering me enough guidance when I go in and make my final marks with a pen. Ink going on next, once that layer was done I began to color and highlight the drawing with colored pencil. Adding gradient/shading to the feathers along with coloring the face.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how this piece came out. The form is good in my opinion and I like the certain fantasy aspect of it. Though I did struggle with some design pieces of it, which then led me to remove both my original background and feet of the bird, the final product honestly came out better then I pictured it would. Still, I do plan on revisiting this piece in the future. To create a more interactive background, showing what the bird is actually eating.