Mixed Media

For this artist statement I am choosing to write about the summative project that we did for the mixed media unit. In this unit we were supposed to show what we could create using many different materials. I think that mixed media is very helpful because the point of it is to use different materials to create art. This drawing that I made was a realistic drawing. I chose to draw my cat and really focus in on what I saw. The only part of this that could have been abstract would have been the background because we were drawing from a picture that we had taken. I chose to draw realistically because I knew that it would reflect my image better.

For this project the materials were fairly simple. We were given the choice to use ink, Charcoal, graphite, and we needed to draw it on watercolor paper. I chose to use all of these materials. I believe that watercolor paper was the best option for this because it was large and could absorb the materials better so they didn't bleed through or bend the paper. The ink I used for the darker parts of the drawing like the background because it was the darkest material available. Then the charcoal was mainly used for all the other parts because I could create different values with that. Last I used the graphite to outline certain objects when copying my drawing down onto paper.

During this process of creating a mixed media drawing very little research was done. The only thing that I guess you could count as research would be finding a photograph that I wanted to recreate in the drawing. For this project we did a little practice in which we created a value strip so we could play with different shades of certain materials. For this project no revising was involved especially since if you mess up with ink it will not come off. During the project my main experiment was with the materials I used. Prior to this project I didn't really ever use charcoal. During this project I concluded that it is very hard to control, it is very messy, but it does create a great variety of tones. I also never really used ink other than to write with so that was certainly different.