Mixed Media

For my mixed media scaled drawing I decided to draw a picture of me and my friend jumping in a shape of a heart. I liked the compositions because the shape was not completely center and overall it seemed interesting enough to draw. To begin I put a border around the big paper. I then gridded it 2 inch boxes...on my photograph I made 1 inch boxes. From there I outlined the figures using the grid method. I have to admit this part was hardest. When I was happy with the figures I used a brush to paint many coats of black ink. I used ink because I wanted the shapes to really pop and be very dark; I could not get that precision with charcoal or graphite. After that was done I made a light gray wash to cover the entire background. After that all had dried I went over the upper part of the sky with white charcoal to make the background smooth and a solid tone. For the foreground I blended charcoal. After that I focused on the highlights of the clouds and where there were darker shades. This was the most time consuming part of the project. I then went over the figures in ink again because the white charcoal had created a thin dust I didn't want. I chose not to use graphite in this drawing because the shades of the pencil were either too light or wouldn't create a nice even color.