02. Abstract Shoe Drawing

Artist Statement: When first designing my abstract shoe drawing I had no idea what I wanted to turn it into. Originally I was going to use watercolors, and make some kind of ocean piece/landscape. But in the end I decided to go with a more forest background, and replace my watercolors with colored pencils. I decided to do this because I felt a bit more confident with the colored pencils, and I thought it would tie in well with the forest feel. Shading with color pencils had never been one of my strong points, and furthermore I had a hard time in keep the color tone the same. Starting out I pencil sketched out the tree branches that stemmed from my original shoe lace. Making sure they connected in some way. Then I decided to turn the shoe lace hole into some sort of fountain, drawing small waves coming out of the hole along the shoe lace. Once everything was sketched out I began to color in the branches. Starting out with a dark shade of brown this would serve as my shadows for the branches. Coloring where I wanted the shadows I then started to slowly draw lighter with the pencil, giving the illusion that the softer side had light shinning down on it. After that I began to color in the flames, using the same method I did for the branches. Except this time I also add a circler coloring motion, making the flames feel more dementnal. I also created a bit of hashing on the flames to. The last step of this piece was to color in the green folige. I used the simple method of coloring it in darker near the branches and lighter towards the middle, also making it have a feeling of depth.