Mixed Media

Artist Statement

The story behind the piece, “A Walk with Wallace,” begins in the title. The work is a drawing created from a picture I took while on a walk with my 7-year old friend Wallace. We had gone on a walk in the woods with the task of finding mushrooms. Whenever we found one we would take a picture of it. This is how this picture came about. I choose it as the image I wanted to work from because it showed the gills of the mushrooms quite a lot which I find fascinating as well as really fun to draw. The title went through multiple stages, but finally I went with “A Walk with Wallace,” for what it is what it is.

“A Walk with Wallace” was made using Ink, Charcoal, and Graphite. I used these systematically throughout the piece, but graphite was definitely used the least, and charcoal the most. For the Ink, I used that the most at the top of the page, up where the “bark” was supposed to be. This didn’t really look like bark, and I mostly just considered it as a part of what the camera had done to the background. I also used white charcoal over the “bark/blobs” to make some parts lighter. I made the mushrooms almost entirely out of charcoal. The ground (stump) that the mushrooms were on were made using black charcoal, and the pine needles/moss/forest matter were graphite, and charcoal. As for the paper that I used, that was light blue pastel paper. This was strong enough for the Ink, and let it also would allow the charcoal to sink in just enough that it didn’t have a bumpy affect.

When I started the piece it was by gridding both my image and then my pastel paper. I used a 1” by 0.5” grid. This helped because my image was very detailed. Once I had my grid I started to draw, using ink, in the upper lefthand corner. I worked my way both across and down, and eventually finished over in the bottom right corner. It started off a little slow, but once I stopped and took a step back, I could see that the mushrooms were really starting to emerge. I found that as I continued, I could use the natural texture of the paper to my advantage, and either fill it in using a smudger, or leave it, This piece worked with the elements of texture and form a lot. The way the elements interacted with each other on the page was interesting to me. Seeing how, when I made one area darker by a lot, it made the contrast go way up. My next steps would definitely be working more with the right side, specifically the 3 columns from right. I rushed those at the end and I think they could use some more work and attention.