Sustained Investigation #4

Night

9" X 9"

Water Soluble Graphite

The story behind my artwork is that the girl is scared and in the dark. She is trying to block her vision with her hands being she doesn't want to see anything that would make her more afraid, but she moves her left and so that she can look over it. In the background, there is a pattern of eyes and rough brush strokes, which are supposed to look like drops. I choose to create this specific drawing because halloween is approaching and I wanted to try to show fear/paranoia. Many people have irrational fears like fears of spiders or thoughts of others (or supernatural fears), and I thought it would be interesting to illustrate the way that people try to ignore them, often without success. And, even though she is looking to the left without seeing anything, she is picturing the eyes lurking to the right.

I made this primarily using water soluble graphite with a brush pen on bristol paper. Then, I adjusted it with a 6B graphite pencil and a gel pen, but I tried to avoid changing the natural brush strokes too much.

I started with a thumbnail sketch of the drawing. Then, I lightly added it onto a sheet of bristol paper. After that, I went in with the brush pen and water soluble graphite to add details and contrast. I tried to focus on making the most out of the texture the brush created. I used the value the brush pen created to add form and texture to the shapes I sketched. Then, I used very dark graphite to create the pattern of eyes and branches in the background. From that pattern I wanted to create a swaying upward sense of movement, almost as if the person is falling down, but the eyes are staying in place. At this point, I was mostly done, but I decided to add highlights with a white gel pen and add some more precision with a 6B pencil. From here, I'm considering starting over: I'm really happy with the concepts, but I don't like the lack of details, inconsistent lighting, and proportions. Given more time, I would take my own reference photos rather than guessing. Based on the time I have to work on these I may not be able to though.