Revised Sustained Investigation

Artist Statement:

For this project, we were supposed to take an old Sustained Investigation project and reimagine it. I got a lot of feedback to recycle my 2nd Sustained Investigation, so I decided to reimagine this one. The idea behind the original version was to show what my pets mean to me. Along this line, I chose to reimagine it in a way that shows what pets mean to people in general. For the new version, I used a picture I had of my grandfather and his dog and cat. 

For this project, I almost exclusively used graphite pencils, and I completed it on a piece of drawing paper. I used a photographic reference as well. I chose graphite because it is a material I haven't used very much this year, and drawing everything out made me feel more connected to the image.

I started off by choosing my photographic reference, which is of my grandfather, his dog, and his cat all sitting together. In a very simple way, I feel like it encompasses the relationship between people and their pets: that of comfort and companionship. Then, using the reference, I reprinted the image with graphite pencils. I also noticed the process felt more personal when I interacted with the materials so closely. Finally, I wish I could have pushed the contrast of the drawing more, but unfortunately, even with a 6B grade pencil, the tooth of the paper was not picking it up. I may revise it later using charcoal, which is bound to darken some areas.