Art has always been relevant.
I've drawn for as long as I can remember. A few years ago, I began to use art as a way to express my values and feelings.
I hope to one day use art to help others, whether my pieces raise awareness or support individuals. The world is far from perfect - I'd like to make my own contribution to its improvement.
This past fall, I took a portfolio development course at Pratt. I gained even more exposure to figure drawings and paintings, one of which I included on the right. These types of pieces are important and helpful to building one's understanding of drawing. My experiences with figure drawings, both from Pratt and outside of Pratt, immensely helped me with the drawings in my Sustained Investigation.
red thread
The Chinese red thread parable tells of a god who connects people with an invisible red thread at birth. These people are destined to later meet and marry.
I decided to put a twist on the parable, and depicted different types of relationships.
Romantic
Romantic relationships are important to many of us. This was the first connection that I thought of. I wanted to try and depict the closeness between two partners. To do so, I worked with facial expressions and the directions in which they faced.
Before these two pieces, I had never used charcoal to draw realistically from a photo, nor had I used tinted charcoal. I focused heavily on details in the skin and less on proportions.
Olivia
Evan
Companionship
For the second pairing, I decided to use an owner and pet relationship. People grow to love their animals with every bit of their being.
With this drawing, I experimented with the incorporation of soft pastel with charcoal to give the hair a softer and more realistic appearance. Drawing fur with a messier material was also new to me. Since charcoal blends easily, I had to figure out a technique that would allow for finer details in the fur.
Lily
Tessa
Friendship
As human beings, we seek for a sense of belonging and human connections. Friendships offer both of these needs.
The hair texture was a prominent detail in these drawings. I experimented with different pencil strokes. It's super easy to layer white charcoal on top of soft pastel, and so I took advantage of that information to draw the stray hairs that helped to create the texture.
Suvi
Sami
family
Family does not include only those who are blood-related to us. Often times, we find family in other people, whether those people have been with us for our entire lives or a few years.
For these pieces, I wanted to work on focusing on the piece as a whole as opposed paying close attention to small areas. Such methods of drawing help to speed up the process, something that I have been working to improve.
Zoe
Johanna
The Process
Sketching
Starting out is never easy. It's difficult to know where to start and where everything should go in order to create the desired composition. I began with sketches to plan out each piece's layout: where the face would fall on the page, how much of the page would be filled, the general scale of the piece. These were extremely helpful with drawing the initial outline when dealing with a big piece of blank paper.
Imperfections
After each sketch, I'd go back and list what I had difficulty with and what I needed to keep note of. I also wrote down different ideas about the background or what to change in the final drawing.
I then primed the paper with black charcoal to create a grey tone. I sketched out each drawing with vine charcoal and then went over it with a charcoal pencil. Afterwards, I wiped away the vine charcoal, leaving behind a clean outline (they always look strange and sometimes even a little scary).
I followed the outline with the first bit of color and detail.
Once everything is done, I go back and look for disproportions.
This is the first photo I took after finishing the portrait of Suvi. There were many errors, especially in the nose length and the height of her face.
I spent quite some time fixing as many details as I could. Some of the pieces remain far from perfect, but it's important to understand that art isn't always about exact precision.
extras
I initially planned on using oil paints for my entire concentration. Soon after, I made the decision to work with charcoal instead. I preferred using charcoal - I draw faster and can still create a quality piece that looks less generic.
This piece was part of the relationship between two twins. Psychology studies have shown stronger connections and similarities between identical twins, and so I wanted to work off of that information.
While I have your attention,
We all know what is going on.
Needless to say, the world is an unfair place. It is important to stand for what's right rather than to stay silent.
Click on the buttons below to learn about the current situation and ways in which you can contribute.
Be an ally.
Thank you.
