DECEMBER 30, 2015

In this project, we were assigned to choose a photo to draw from, the only requirements that we had to use at least charcoal and ink, the graphite being optional.

To start off with, I first graphed both the reference photo and the paper that I would be drawing on. To make sure that the squares on the drawing paper were correct in proportion to the squares on reference—since the reference was smaller than the drawing paper—I made the squares on the drawing paper twice the size of the the reference. Once that was complete, I sketched the basic outline of the major components, and then I erased most of the gridlines. Due to time constraints, I made sure that I used the ink first (I do not have ink of my own at home, so this was something that had to be done at school). The basic shape of the dogs head, the dark area of the nose, and a few other larger grey areas were all covered by ink or a lighter ink wash. Once that had dried, I began to further the details, going in with charcoal to add the details and using white gel pen to lighten the areas that needed it. After this had been completed, I worked on the background, mostly using charcoal and graphite, but some ink as well.

This piece was not very fun for me, however that is more due to my dislike of large art as opposed to the content of the assignment itself. I enjoyed that we were able to choose our own photo reference, however once I actually began, I realized that this was not going to be as fun as I had anticipated—what with all the fur details, not to mention the strange angle and the odd patterns of the background, I had a difficult time mustering up the will to get to work on this. Though I originally didn't want to work with ink, that turned out to be the easiest part of it. The ink was easy to spread, and it provided a nice base for the value that I needed. The hardest part was all of the small details, as well as ensuring that the fur lines were going in the right direction. However, as difficult as this was, I am relatively pleased with the outcome—I think that I did an okay job with getting the value correct, and although it was rather toilsome, the end result of drawing all of that fur was nice. Shape wise, I think that the head is a bit off-kilter, but not so much so that it detracts from the piece. All in all, I feel neutral about this.