Bamboo

This is my black and white animal. For this project I was not supposed to use color, and if I did I was only supposed to use selective color. The project was also supposed to be based on a observation not on a picture, so I used a realistic toy. I decided to use a panda, one because I like bears and pandas, but also because they are already mostly black and white. Instead of using white paper, I decided to use gray paper. I wanted to do this so that I could shade, and pull out highlights, instead of the usual, just shading. I thought this would add an interesting layer to a black and white image.

I started out the project by sketching out the general shape of the panda. I used graphite to get the outline and some of the facial features. I decided to use charcoal for the panda, because I knew there were different shades as well as white charcoal. I began with the dark parts of the panda. After I had finished these, I began some sketchy white lines. I like the gestural look these gave. When I finished these lines however, I had smudged the black charcoal, resulting the the gestural look to disappear. I used a harder charcoal to go on top of the darker spots to make it look like hair. I used layer after layer. I really liked the way this looked, so I chose to use the same technique for my white areas with the white charcoal. I went in with white to pull highlights in the dark areas, and did the opposite for the light areas.

After this I had decided that charcoal wasn't really my thing. I did not like how long it took, for a not very satisfying result. I did however want to have some background. I decided to use colored pencils for this. I made many bamboo sticks in the background with different shades of green, along with brown stripes. I had gotten a lot of charcoal on the bottom of the paper, so I used and eraser to pull away the charcoal outlining where the panda's shadow would be. To give the piece a more finished look, I erased the boarder to make it clean.