Charcoal drawing

For this project we were told to create a gridded charcoal drawing using our knowledge from the previous gridded drawing assignment and the sphere value scale located above in the upper left corner. We were given multiple charcoal utensils, a tortillon, a view finder, and erasers to complete this task. Just like my gridded-self portrait drawing, I worked from the top and then went down. I decided to not spend a crazy amount of time on each square and rather get a rough draft for each one and go back after to add, erase, etc.. There were times where I was spending too long on an individual grid and made myself move on. My project began to evolve when I had completed about half of it. Everything was pretty similar to the reference picture seen above on the bottom left corner. This piece of art also took less time than the gridded self-portrait. Even though the gridded self-portrait is a little bit more technical, I believe my process of not spending as long on the individual grids and going back afterwards payed off.

I used value to create an emphasis on different shadows and highlights throughout my piece as well as a contrast between different values. I used texture on the duckling in the front (Henry) to create a sense of reality and unity. I also used my knowledge from the sphere value scale to create the more circular-like shapes in my piece. There wasn't much negative space in this piece.

I do not have a specific story for this piece however I will tell of my ducks. They are grown up now, the one in the back (Olive) is dead lol rip. The one in the front (Henry) is a a new farm with a ton of other ducks as we could no longer take care of her. This obviously relates to my life as I took care of them and actually grew a connection with them which isn't always common with farm animals and people as we see farmers usually eating their livestock. I am proudest of the crocs in the left-hand corner of my drawing as well as Henry. I feel that they look pretty realistic and detailed. I struggled with the floor or deck floor as well as the mat on the left side of the drawing. It was hard the get the more realistic look with these things. I also think the towel on the bottom could look better than it came out. My charcoal pencil needed to be sharpened however I did not have a sharpener so I just picked at it and made it sharp again. Charcoal in general is also way more smudgy than a lead pencil which caused some problems when I need to do smaller and darker spots, for example the eyes on Henry. I also had trouble with the little hairs coming off of Henry especially when they were white against a light background. I fixed this by making the background darker. All in all, I think it came out pretty good and accurate to the reference photo.