Scholastic Project #2

MIGRATION

NOV. 1, 2018 — pen, graphite, Sharpie

In this project, we were given the choice of doing one of several prompts for the Scholastic Art and Writing competition. I chose to expand upon the portfolio that I'll be submitting.

I knew that I wanted to keep with my theme of monsters (since I have a lot of projects with that theme already), but I also wanted to sort of branch out and try drawing something that I hadn't done before. So I came up with the idea of bugs—I would just make them kind of monster-y, and then hopefully it would be sufficient for my concentration. I began by sketching out a rough composition, and then as usual I went in and outlined everything with pen. After that was done, I filled in the background with black. I used Sharpie to fill in the majority of the back spaces and then (since Sharpie tends to leak on watercolor paper) I used pen to fill in the areas immediately surrounding the bugs. At this point I scanned my drawing (just in case) and went in to add some selective color. I chose red, since I thought that that would contrast the best with the black and white, and after I was done adding the color I used graphite to shade a bit. With that, I had completed one of the drawings; however, I wasn't really sure that I liked the way that it looked, so I ended up printing out the version that I had scanned. I printed it onto watercolor paper (a risk on my part, since I wasn't sure if it would work or if it would jam the printer or something) and added some small white details to the background. Thus, I was done with this project.

I feel pretty neutral about the outcome of this project. On one hand I'm glad that I took the chance to sort of branch out and try to draw things that I hadn't before, and I'm also proud of myself for drawing it traditionally (the urge to revert back to digital illustration was strong). However, I also don't really like the way that my colored version came out—I feel like it looked a lot better before I added the shading and the red, and that perhaps I should have just left it in black and white. Of course, I was able to print out a copy of the black and white version, but it just isn't the same (it's printer ink instead of the Sharpie and pen that I used on the original). In spite of the parts that I'm unhappy with, I do think that I have a pretty decent composition, and I like the overall contrast in both pieces—though, if I were to do this project again, I'm pretty sure that I would refrain from coloring the original drawing at all.