OCTOBER 24, 2015

For this assignment we were to draw a pair of shoes that were important to us, using pure contour. Then, with the aid of a viewfinder we had to find an interesting portion of the shoes and redraw them larger. The final step was to add a background that represented us in some way, or was meaningful to us.

I chose to draw my Converse. The first thing that I did was draw the pair from several different angles, and then I had to decide which I liked best, basing this decision on how compelling the composition was and how nice it looked overall. I decided to use a front-and-slightly-overhead view, and once this had been made into a thumbnail sketch in my sketchbook, I redrew it larger on the bigger paper. For the outline of the shoe I first used a light pencil and sketchy lines, but once the proportions were right I went over it with a darker 6B pencil. As for the background, I used the color pencils for this, and for the most part I didn't draw in regular pencil first since I felt like making up the design as I went.

I decided to do my Converse for three reasons: one, they were currently on my feet on the day that we were doing this; two, I have become rather fond of them since I have owned them for quite a while now; and three, they have gained quite an interesting shape after having been molded by my feet for so long. I thought that the view I eventually decided on was interesting as well since it allows you to see the intricate knots in the laces, and I found this quite fun to draw. My inspiration for the fall background came from a myriad of things, but most prominent are the facts that it is currently fall, I love fall, and I have very many fond memories that have taken place in this season. As cliche as it sounds I have always loved the changing of the leaves, and so I thought that I should attempt to show some of those feelings in my drawing. Whether I succeeded or not depends upon the viewer, however I am quite pleased with how this turned out. The lines are for the most part solid and non-sketchy, and I like the color that I added in the background, as well.