{Drawing Final Portfolio}

1). My most successful drawing this semester was my self portrait. I drew with charcoal and pastel on a piece of plywood. I chose wood because I had never drawn on wood before and thought it would be really fun. I had also never drawn with charcoal before, and it is now one of my favorite mediums to draw with. At first I was going to leave the hair with just as a few streaks, like in the second picture. However Mrs. Rossi pushed me to add more value and add a lot more to the hair. I think that with out doing that the final piece wouldn't have looked nearly as good. The most difficult part of this project was getting the proportions to be correct. I re-drew the eye at least four times which was the most frustrating part of this project. Part of the reason it was so hard for me to get the proportions correct was because I drew on a larger scale than I'm use to. I definitely put the most time into this piece, and I am very proud of it.

2).My least successful drawing project was my figure drawing. I hate this project, so much. I spent about two and a half hours on the clothes, and then when I got to the face I completely ruined it. If I could change anything I would have tried a little harder on the face. I really wish that I was better at drawing faces; however, I really am terrible at drawing people.  Even though I really love the clothes my eye immediately moves back to the face, which looks awful. I think the eyes are to small and the nose is just horrendous. My favorite part is definitely the clothes. I feel like the looks evened out the awful face.

3). At the beginning of the semester we drew bottles. I felt that I improved a lot from my first bottle to my last. My first bottle is not very well highlighted or shaded. However my little jar shows transparency and the highlights on the surface. The first bottle was done with just pencil. Part of the reason the first bottle looks so weird is because the shading is incorrect. The bottom of the bottle is way to dark. The second bottle was drawn with prisma. I think that having the different colors in the jar adds to the transparency of the jar and makes it look more realistic. These two jars I believe show a great amount of improvement.

4). My  two favorite mini lessons were definitely my orange and candy. We drew fruit on the first day and I never new I had the capability to draw this good until we learned important shading tips. I drew the orange with pencil and although I don't really like using pencil I loved the outcome of the orange. Mrs. Rossi taught us how to correctly highlight, and it is vital that they are correct in order to make the piece as realistic as possible. My absolute! favorite mini lesson was my candy it was the first time I fell in love with pastels. My eyes were opened! My favorite part of this lesson was learning how to do the wrapper. It is mind blowing to me how just a few highlights can make a world of a difference in making something look transparent. We did 

5). This semester I really enjoyed working with charcoal and pastel pencil. My self portrait and opacity project where both done with these mediums. I love the way they blend so easily. So much detail can be added just by adding layers. My favorite part of pastels is the different values you can get by using different colors. There are three different kinds of charcoal pencils that I used this ear. 2b, 4b,and 6b they are all super important in creating just the right value and shading. If it wasn't for this class I probably would have never picked up a charcoal pencil or considered using pastels. They are now my favorite mediums.