Drawing Final Exam

1. For our most successful project, I chose my flower with dew drops that I did with Prismacolors on brown paper. Our theme was something that can be seen through and when I went through my photos and found this one with the dew drops. The dew drops were not only transparent, but they also magnified the details, colors, and reflected the sky. I chose Prismacolor pencils because I knew I wanted to capture the detail and vibrant colors. I had initially worried about how well I could capture the reflections and shapes of the petals, but I knew that in order to make it as realistic as possible, I had to ignore what I thought it should look like and focus just on the lines, shapes, and the value changes in the colors. Had I done from imagination, I would not have added blue to the leaf or purple to the red petals, but because I focused on the exact colors in the photo it turned out really well and I surprised myself. I chose brown paper because I thought it would not only enhance all the colors in the drawing, but also bring out the reds and purples of the flower and make it look more life-like. A picture doesn't have solid colors and I really discovered just how much colored paper and the use of many colors can bring out the reality of a piece. I kept the piece relatively the same size as the picture because I wanted to focus on capturing the true shape, size and most importantly the detail of all the different objects in the drawing.

2. I think my least successful project was my perspective piece because even though my perspective was accurate, it was too empty and would have looked better had I added more detail and values. I did not put anything in the background and that was too much negative space that hurt the piece. The buildings really needed more values and variation in the windows and structures. All of the buildings are straight and rectangular and I think the drawing would have benefitted if I had put in more unique styled buildings with different architecture. The values across the buildings are also pretty close in range and it would have looked better had the difference between dark and light been exaggerated more. I did not put many buildings in it because I was worried about how the perspective would look the farther out on the page so I kept the outside space empty. Now I realize that the excess of negative space really did take away from the image and probably would have been a bit better had the space been filled. However, that was the first time I had done birds- eye perspective, and as much as I learned more from using that type of perspective, I could have stuck to a simpler form of perspective and done a more detailed work. I have done previous perspective pieces that even though they were only one- point, I had put in a lot more detail and the buildings had been unique in a more interesting setting.

 3. I chose two of the self portraits I had done over the semester to compare because there is a big difference in the quality of the drawing. The first portrait, we did over a skull image to help us with the proportions but I definitely know I could have put more effort in to make a more quality piece. This one was done in pencil and while that is usually my better medium, but my values aren't as strong as the ones in my second self- portrait. The second one I actually started outside of class last semester but never did the final piece. That one was done over a longer period of time because I used a grid to get the measurements and do the facial features in the proper proportions and values. I then transferred the outlines to the nicer final piece and switched form using pencil on the rough draft to charcoal which had darker values and gives a better texture. The first portrait clearly looks nothing like me mainly because I didn't pay attention to the proper measurements and got my proportions way off. The second looks like me and I impressed myself because it was the first portrait that actually looked a lot like me and accurate to the picture.The charcoal really helped me capture the texture of my hair while also making it look dark enough because of my brown hair that would have been trickier in pencil. I made sure to get the shape of the highlights on the top of my hair, because of that the highlights look really realistic.

4. For the mini projects, I think the ones that were the most helpful were glass bottle drawing and candy drawings. The glass bottle we did in white pencil and was really helpful because it helped us to focus on drawing just the lights. When you stop looking for the dark values, the highlights become more obvious and vibrant making it almost easier to do them on dark paper versus pencil on white paper. This exercise helped because now in projects since, I look for the highlights more and I have realized that often times the highlights are what make a piece realistic. There are highlights in anything that might have a sheen to it or have a bright light on it which makes it more important to capture them when they are there. I used to not want to put a random white line across something even if I could see it because I was drawing what I thought it should look like and not what I could actually see. The candy drawings we did were fun because the wrappers had highlights and the candies had a wide variety of colors. I chose a Jolly Rancher because of the folds and wrinkles in the plastic and because the more you look at the colored candy, the more colors you see. This candy was pink but in order to capture the shadows and lighter areas, I also put in purples and oranges. The wrapper was to draw because it was clear but when I added the highlights in, the wrappers lines stood out. This was a really beneficial exercise because it got me to look for colors that you wouldn't see at first and to exaggerate the highlights and shadows.

 







5.My favorite medium was the Prismacolor pencils because I loved how much the many different colors could be layered and could make a piece look incredibly realistic. The Prismacolors are so much better than regular colored pencils because they are both a thicker consistency and softer. When I was doing my flower drawing, the pencils enabled me to layer the reds, pinks, and purples to make the flower look more 3D and realistic. Using purples and darker colors instead of just black for the darker areas helped make the flower look more realistic because the colors blend together instead of having the sharper look of black against color. The colors layer really well and helped me to make the exact colors I wanted. The background behind my flower was blurred and the Prismacolors enabled me to blend the colors and give the image more movement instead of sharp color changes. I also did a Smarties candy when we did the other candy exercises with different mediums. This one I did in Prismacolors because of the many different colors and I knew that the colored pencils would be the best to blend. They also helped me to capture the sharp highlights and blend the reds and pinks in the wrapper.