Scratch Art

The subject of my creation is a cat in a backyard. For paper, I used white paper with a layer of black which I scratched away. To remove the black, I mostly used the finest tool, but when I wanted a pure white without digging into the paper, I used the chisel tip tool. I choose to create this specific artwork because I liked the blurry background and how the light hit the cat's fur. To emphasise this effect, I increased the contrast in the photo. I used lines to show shape, and value and texture to show form. I used an intriguing negative space to give the drawing interest.

When setting up this drawing I decided I wanted informal balance. Also, I chose a selective focus on the cat by making the background shading softer than the foreground. In addition, I used low key lighting to add more depth to the drawing. This drawing started out with boxes. Slowly, I worked my way through the drawing. While I did this, I tried to avoid having harsh lines at the edges of the boxes, so I would work on multiple at once. Once I finished this stage of the drawing, I took a chisel tip tool and scraped away any specks of black where I wanted highlights. Lastly, I went through the painting with india ink to remove the graphite and edit some sections of the drawing.

This picture is of a cat sitting in front of an evergreen tree. This project relates to my life because it was really good practice drawing fur and I might try this again sometime. While I like the result of this piece a lot as it is one of the more realistic drawings I've done, there is some things I would like to fix:

• The cat's expression is off.
• The background is messy
• I forgot a couple lines on the cat's body.
• The whiskers don't stand out enough.
• The lighting on the back of the cat's head should be brighter.
• I shouldn't have outlined the shapes in the background.
• The cat's tail is too small.
• I did not leave enough of a shadow on the head.
• The nose is flat and lumpy looking.
• There isn't enough contrast on the head.