Mixed Media

In this unit, we focused on using different materials to create different things. We did two projects so far working with the different materials. I made a charcoal, ink, and graphite value strip and am finishing up my charcoal and ink drawing. These projects relate to my life because they are both using new materials that I am not the most comfortable with and the charcoal and ink drawing specifically is super time consuming like some things in life. I am working on balancing my work and this project is an example of how I am having to work on that.

For these projects, we used charcoal and ink on the charcoal and ink drawing I am making of Lucy and charcoal, ink, and graphite for the value strips. I also used part of a 9x11 in piece of paper for the value strips and a 8x12 in piece of paper for the charcoal and ink drawing. I also used a tortillian to blend some of the materials together.

For the value strips I tried to blend the materials the best I could and tried stippling which I had never tried before to try and meet the requirements. I had to erase some of the excess charcoal from the edges of the value strips because it smears a lot sometimes especially if you blow on it. For the charcoal and ink drawing, I started with creating a base color for the squares using either a 2B charcoal pencil or ink. I then went over them with other/lighter colors such as white to add highlights and make the drawing look more realistic. I had to start over on the first 3 squares many times because I couldn’t match the color of the reference photo very well. This ended up taking a few hours off of what we had to work on this project which was definitely a major set back.If I were to do these projects again, I would definitely try to remember not the blow on the charcoal because it smeared it last time. Also for the charcoal and ink drawing I would do my best to find ways to work faster on it because I have to turn it in late because I can’t seem to work on it fast enough. Maybe trying new methods or researching a little bit will help me to find more efficient ways to create this type of art.