Mixed Media

When making this piece I tried to pay as much attention to shadows and value as possible, I found the picture I took after editing it to be rather dark, so I attempted to match these values as much as possible. Comparing this to my last grid drawing, I tried to slow down the process a bit. I didn’t want to rush anything, therefor I went slower than I previously did. In the end I’m okay with how it turned out, and in general just like it more than my last grid drawing. All of the shadows within the photograph were rather dark, and the texture of the fur pretty soft. I tried to match the texture of the fur as close as possible, once again just trying to make it as detailed as possible in order for the piece to come out accurate and realistic. When using Ink, I decided to mix it with water in order to get a sort of gray color, I did this on my value strip and in the end I was satisfied with the specific ink part, initially believing it to be more difficult to use than it really was. This project relates to my life due to the fact that I decided to draw my new puppy for this assignment. We’ve only had her for about a week or two, so I wanted to draw her for this assignment.

Most of the work was made using charcoal, while only one small part was made using ink. I didn’t change the charcoal pencil that I was using, only sticking with a 2b because I could get all the values I needed with that pencil. I also used a tortillon quite a lot within this piece. I blended all of the charcoal, trying to make it smooth in orde to actually get the effect/look that I desired. I enjoyed using the charcoal, and liked both using it and the outcome. With the ink I knew I wanted to add water in order to get the ink to be a more gray color. I preferred using charcoal over the ink much more so decided to incorporate the ink on a smaller section of the piece rather that using it a lot.

Overall I just attempted to move slow throughout the piece in order to pay more attention to detail. Another thing I attempted to do was capture the texture of the fur. Everything in the photograph was rather fuzzy, and I wanted to capture the exact softness/texture of the dogs fur. I also experimented with value, the shadows on the dog were rather dark, so I wanted to make sure you could tell the difference between shadows and the background of the piece as well as different features such as the eyes and nose. This piece evolved as I experimented with blending more and more. At first, very early on, I was afraid about how it out. However, as I blended more and used the tortillon I became more comfortable with making the piece. No matter what I always urged my self to slow down through this project as well. My next steps could be to just continue doing this in order to get better at the grid method as a whole and blend more of my realistic pieces. I could also just use charcoal more as it was a material I enjoyed using.