Line Exercise

This page was an exercise in producing lines using many different tools, with both the additive and reductive methods.

I used markers of different thicknesses.  At the right is a part where I created an vertical implied line using thick marker.  Around the center circle were lines made with thin marker, and a few thicknesses of marker defined the shape to the right of the circle.

A few different pencils were used in some places.  It was quite easy to make thicker lines and smudge the soft pencils, while the harder pencils could make thin, defined lines.

Charcoal lines go all the way up the right edge, as if everything is being pulled towards the darkness of the bottom corner.

ALSO I REALLY REALLY REALLY LIKE THE PEN THAT YOU DIP IN THE INK??? IT'S SO GUD. I L♡VE IT. I WANT MY OWN.
I used it like ALL over the place pretty much everywhere!! <3 For thick lines and for thin lines, and for making dots, both huge and tiny, for waving, curly lines and for lots of straight lines... You almost can't really see the pencil lines at the bottom section because the ink lines are sooooo pretty.  There's many thin lines around the circle that vary in length, getting longer and shorter, in a pattern that reminds me of sound waves.

As well as doing lots of lines, I also created some textures with stippling, hatching, and cross-hatching in some spaces.  The hatching in the bottom right corner gives the impression that the entire section is being pulled towards the corner of the paper.  There's a line of boxes near the top left corner that I also did with the pen.  I never really got to experiment with using a brush to apply ink, because much of the page was already covered at that point.

For parts of the page I used the reductive line method, which is to create lines by removing material instead of adding it.  I colored some spaces using oil pastels and painted over them with black paint.  Once the paint dried, I used some scratching tools to remove the paint and create lines.  I especially used thick lines in the center circle, and many small thin lines in the left section.  Thick and thin was contrasted in the top corner.  Unfortunately, I had painted some parts too thick and the paint chipped instead of being carefully scratched away...

A reductive line method I wish I could have used was to color an area with pencil and use an eraser to remove it, which is something I've seen somewhere else used to an interesting effect.

Filling the entire page with so many different types of lines resulted in a very interesting piece, and it was a good experience to test out so many different tools.  I love that darn pen..

Still Life Drawing

This is my still life drawing.

I'm not sure how the heck you want me to write this blog post.  I've never seen an example of what a good one is supposed to be.  The idea that I'm supposed to measure up to a super perfect score is intimidating me.  I don't want to mess this up just because I'm new to it.

I'm typically a digital artist, so the only materials I usually contend with are brush settings.  However, this is a drawing on paper, and to cover a full range of value, I've used charcoal, pencils, an eraser, and a white pastel.

Before starting to draw, I created a tonal ground by using charcoal for a light gray.

When I got my objects, I placed them... somehow.  I'm not sure if this arrangement really exemplifies one specific compositional device.  I was really feeling the negative space created between the roller and the tomato.  The tomato's placement is according to the rule of thirds.

I used the graphite crayon (6B pencil) to render out the general shapes and placement of the objects.  To more clearly define the outlines, I traced a contour line as I was looking at the edges of the objects.  The roller itself has slight perspective, with the far end being narrower than the close end, to show how it's being viewed from this angle.  While I do feel that the placement mostly accurate to life, the angle of the roller handle was too much and I hadn't noticed until it was already shaded.

The lightest parts were highlighted with white pastel and the darkest parts with charcoal.  The dark parts would be the shadows (especially under the roller+handle and inside the can) and light parts are where the light hit the objects most intensely.  The can had a very reflective surface, so there were many places where light and dark contrasted. I used the eraser to lighten the value of areas, but not as intensely.  The eraser was also used around the edges of the objects where there weren't shadows, and the light table could be seen instead.

A harder pencil was used for places where the value was in between that of the eraser and that of the soft pencil.  To blend different values together, I used a blending stick.  The blending stick was especially useful for the shadows of the objects.  Because of there being multiple light sources, there were multiple shadows, which overlapped and created places that were darker, lighter, or simply faded into the light color of the table.

Creating this full range of value and being able to blend and contrast the darkest and lightest parts is something I think was successfully done in this drawing.

To create an illusion of three-dimentionality, I drew lines along the surface contour of the objects.  This was especially done around the roller and its handle, but also around the tomato.  This makes the objects pop out more.  However, I feel that I didn't do enough on the tomato, and it still looks rather flat.

Overall this was a good experience, to work with the different materials and bring them together into one complete drawing.