Mixed Media Drawing. 

Artist statement. 

The main idea behind this piece was to draw an image with charcoal and ink.  I chose one of my favorite photos of my dog, and I thought it would be perfect for this project because it's a closeup and shows some great details. 

I used a stump of both black and white charcoal, along with a charcoal pencil of each color, too. As for ink, I used a white ink pen. And finally, for blending I used a tortillion, a shammy, and a kneaded eraser. 

To start, I desaturated the photo and adjusted my high and low lights to get it to a point where I could see all the information, but there was a good contrast. After printing, I calculated the border and grid size needed and gridded my pastel paper and my photo. The photo was gridded to be two times larger than the photo. I started drawing in the upper left-hand corner, to try to diminish smudging in the future. I also placed a scrap paper under my hand to prevent my hand from dragging charcoal. For each grid, I went in with black and white stumps to make the grey background.  Then, I went in with the main color, black, and added details on top of that base color. When it came to white highlights, I used the white charcoal pencil first to draw detailed hair and then used an ink pen to create popping highlights.  I experimented a lot with the white ink pen because I struggled at first to figure out how to apply the product onto the page. I found it was very finicky and you had to get a perfect balance of pressure for the white ink to come out. I used a scrap piece of paper to test different ways to use the pen, along with the charcoal as I wasn't too familiar with it. But in the end, I was able to create texture. After this project, I have learned to love realistic drawing and charcoal. I think in the future I will think to use charcoal more as I love the way you can draw with it, and still get perfect details with a sharp charcoal pencil.