For this sustained investigation I explored memory and growth through my musical experience by drawing a portrait of myself and creating a collage of important and impactful photos from my childhood involving musical experiences. 

For material I used graphite, to create my portait and scene. For graphite I mostly used the HB pencil and the 4B becuase the 4B really helped build contrast and was easier to blend while HB was a great detailng pencil. For the background I collages all of the photos that I had references in taking the photo and had been looking at. For the most part I did make copies because I did not want to loose any important photos.

For the process I mostly was blending with a tortillon and going back over with details and more layers. The part of the project that I was most scared about was cutting out the background of the drawing and replacing it with a collage. This is because I was worried that the bright colors of the photos would take away the contrast of my drawing. I did it anyway becuase I though that if the collage truly took away the contrast I could take a picture of my piece in the atmostphere of a musical space and the background would be that image. I stuck with the collage becuase although in a way the collage definetly takes away some of the values it also sticks out and creates a scene which was my intentions in this project and I think it portrays memories and thoughts better than that of an image would.