Up Close and Personal Practice

As practice for our final Up Close and Personal drawing, we practiced using three different mediums. We used oil pastels, chalk pastels and colored pencils.

The first medium that we used was oil pastels.  We had to draw a soda can using 4 different colors to create values.  I really liked using oil pastels because they really popped against the black paper that we drew the cans on.  I struggled with them because I had a hard time understanding how to blend the colors by just adding lines.  I did like drawing with them however, because they make everything look so bright!

The next medium that we used were chalk pastels.  We created a candy in a transparent wrapper.  I really had fun with this mini project, they were my favorite of the three mediums and I would really enjoy working with chalk pastels more.  Even though I liked them so much, I struggled with making the candy and the folds in the transparent plastic to look real

The final medium that we worked with were colored pencils.  I was the most comfortable with colored pencils out of the other two mediums.  I ended up using colored pencils on my final project because I liked it the best.  In class we had to draw a lollipop showing all of the lights and the darks.  I had a hard time capturing all of the lines and folds in the wrapper, but other than that I really liked using colored pencils.

Overall I really liked all of the different mediums that we worked with, and I enjoyed drawing with all of them!

Scientific Drawing

     For my Scientific drawing, I drew an eye with gears in it.  I showed contrast with my colors in the iris, and with the gears.  My idea was also contrasting, because when I think of an eye, I think of something that moves smoothly, and when I think of gears I think of a lot of grinding and clinking from the metal. 

     I drew my eye using various shades of pencil.  I used the 6B for the pupil and 6H for many of the light parts of the iris.  I chose to use pencil because I felt like all of the highlights throughout the eye could not be captured as well using other mediums.  For techniques, I shaded and made the transition between two colors very smooth, which we learned in a mini lesson.

    When thinking of ideas, I wanted to do something that had contrasting ideas.  I originally thought of drawing a light bulb with a plant in it, but when that did not turn out how I wanted on paper, I thought of drawing an eye with gears. Eyes are scientific because they are part of the human anatomy. And gears are scientific because a scientist invented gears. 

    I think the biggest risk I took on my project was adding gears to the white of the eye.  It was an odd shape to fit them in and I was originally worried that adding the gears would ruin my piece.  But, after drawing them I am happy with how they look because they contrast with the gears in the iris and with the white of the eye.
   
    The biggest challenges for me were drawing the eye lashes and drawing the pupil and iris as a perfect circle.  I had a very hard time getting the lashes to look natural and to make the eye look 3D.  I thought I did a good job capturing the light that is reflected throughout the eye and also with the shading around the eye.  I also think I did well with using contrast.
    
    Overall I am very happy with how my eye turned out, I really like the iris, the inner corner and the skin surrounding the eye.  I wish I could have done better with the eyelashes, but other than that, I like it.