Up Close and Personal - Chalk Medium

                                                  Up Close and Personal - Chalk Medium
                                                                 The Dragon's Eye

                                                                         
                                                                            Thumbnail
                                                         
                                               
                                                                        Final Sketch

Final product with chalk

How did you respond to challenges that occurred as you worked? 
One of the main challenges I ran into using this medium was over blending. Dragon's usually have scaly textures and I first didn't have the cracks showing. I went back in and outlined the scales in black. Another challenge I went through was not being able to get dark. I had to do many layers of black and color to finally reach the medium I wanted. The last thing that I had difficulty with was making things pop out. To fix this I used a whited to add highlights and used the black to deepen the colors. Overall using the chalk was very easy and I didn't come across any other problems.
Did your work take an unexpected turn due to a mistake or did something happen that was unplanned?

     My work went as planned as far as I can think of. The only thing I didn't expect was the flatness in the eyeball. I thought it was going to end p more rounded and three dimensional, but most of it ended up being flat.

What is this artwork intended to say?

My drawing of the dragon eye shows evil, darkness, and hatred. It represents negativity and dark times up close in action. This dragon is awake and it has evil written all over it. There are so many things that the darkness of this dragon can represent. It is there for the viewer to interpret.

What issues are you examining through your artwork?

Negativity is a common occurrence in many people's minds. Negativity sees everything and manages to get in the way of many things. The dragon eye shows that it has a view of everything and the dragon gets in the way and blows fire, just like negativity can show up at any moment. 

How is this artwork about who you are or what you like?

I personally can't stand constant negativity, but the dragon eye shows that there is darkness and negativity everywhere. I also find dragons very interesting and I am a huge fan of drawing eyes. I know drawing eyes is a popular object to draw, but I wanted to try something different and draw a non human eye.

Did you learn new techniques or processes as part of the work for this project?
I learned the technique of starting off in light layers and then build up the intensity. Usually when I used color I start off very dark and then it makes it difficult to blend. Using this technique helped me build depth in the dragon eye and it's skin.
Did you gain skill with familiar materials?

As I continued drawing with the pastels, I became more comfortable with the materials and it was much easier to work with. I am looking forward to using this medium again because I am now experienced with using the color chalk pastels.   

Color Mediums

                                                               Medium Drawings

                   
                                                                             Oil Pastel
                The oil pastel medium was very fun to use, but I found it quite difficult to blend with. When I started this drawing I began at the top of the can with the soda tab. I found this easy to draw and blend, but then I proceeded to draw the rest of the can. As I was coloring the edges with a dark blue and black I realized that it would not blend the way I wanted to. I left that alone and drew the words Coca Cola and I feel confident about those. I used white to help highlight each letter. I then went back to the rest of the can and I found that I was going dark really quickly. Using oil pastels was a challenge for me and I couldn't get it to blend smoothly. I did enjoy using them because the colors were very vibrant and I liked the consistency of the medium.

                                                             
                                                                     Colored Pencils
                    The colored pencils was the most challenging medium for me to use. I found that my lollipop drawing turned out very patchy and rough. I think the best part of the drawing was the lollipop stick because I was able to blend it and I felt good about the shading. If I were ever to use colored pencils again I would most definitely practice with the blending so the shadows don't look so patchy. I have used Prisma Color pencils before and I found them easy to work with, but using only a white Prisma Color and the rest Crayola was very difficult. They did not work well and I feel if I used all Prisma Color my drawing would have blending better and not look streaky.      

                                                                     Chalk Pastels
                  The chalk pastels medium was the easiest medium for me to use. I enjoyed how soft the pastels were and how they glided on the paper. They were fairly easy to blend with and transition into other colors. The sphere shaped candy was easy to draw with the chalk pastels because of the smoothness of the medium. The only difficult part of the drawing was the wrapper. I had too many white lines popping out of nowhere; they didn't connect to anything. I then switched to the chalk stick instead of the chalk pencils and I then could get the hang of drawing the wrapper. This is the color medium drawing I'm most proud of because of the smoothness.

Final Charcoal drawing

Scientific and Contrast Drawing

This is a photo of my work in progress. It does not contain the other turtle and the sand isn't drawn yet. 

1.  To portray the theme of Scientific, I had a few mini themes scattered throughout my project. Life and birth can be thought of as scientific. The turtles in my composition represent this mini theme. The scenario also shows the mini theme 'land versus sea'. The turtles are making their way towards the sea from being hatched. 

2. The mini lessons were not very beneficial to my project because I already was familiar with using charcoal. I have used charcoal to do portraits of people. I did enjoy drawing the sphere and paper bag though. I love drawing detail and that is a key factor when drawing realistic items with charcoal. 

3. I showed contrast in my work with the charcoal on white paper. I also used one of the mini themes, 'land versus sea', to show contrast in the scenery. 

4. I decided to use the charcoal pencils for my composition. I felt most comfortable with using these since I have worked with them on various drawings. I don't like using graphite pencils because they give off a shine on the drawing and it makes it seem realistic. The charcoal has a matte finish to it. Charcoal is easier to work with in my opinion because it blends very smoothly. I do not enjoy pen and ink. I used pen and ink for a project in 8th grade and I haven't mastered the skills for it yet. 

5. Some techniques I used for my composition were shading and blending. These two important techniques help create a realistic feel to the drawing and give it shape and definition.

6. I did not take any risks in this project because I do not enjoy the other mediums. I would not want to spend my time on a project that I didn't want to take part of because I didn't like it. I have used all of the methods in other drawings and charcoal is the one I perfer the most. Also, since I am being graded on how the drawing turned out I would want myself to feel proud of it. 

7. This project was enjoyable because I did get to use charcoal, but it did become tiring after a while. I got bored drawing more than one turtle. I enjoyed drawing the first one and it had a lot of details, but the more I drew these animals the more I got bored with it. I did enjoy shading, that has to be my favorite part of drawing.  I love making things look as realistic as possible.