SYDNEY DAMEWOOD
This piece is a composition practice with the subject being three cups, it was created using a standard pencil. The main ideas to focus on while working on this practice were the orientation of the paper, spacing, height of the bases, and proportion. I chose to orient my paper vertically because my cups were taller, I believe orienting the paper in this way made the cups fit the best onto the paper. When checking spacing I was sure to draw the cups in the center of the paper, making sure I kept the same amount of open space on either side of the cups. Next I focused on the height of the bases, since the center cup is closest I made the height of the base the lowest on the paper so my illustration portrayed this, I put the paint's base the second highest since it is in the middle and then the shaker cups base the highest since it is farthest away. Finally, I focused on proportions, the clear cup in front was the shortest but since it was closer I made it about the same height as the paint bottle and since the shaker cup was the tallest even though it was farthest away I kept it as being the tallest. Overall I am satisfied with the outcome and I feel that this practice helped me focus on the basics of composition a bit more.
This piece is a line quality practice, with the goal of bettering my understanding of the different types of line. The four types of line are thin, thick, dark, and light, I tried to incorporate them all when making this piece. I think I incorporated them well in the clear glass as well as the wires that are near the bottom of the piece. This practice was done within one hour. On top of practicing in line quality this also helped me practice creating shadow and shading more evenly since all of the objects in the practice were very close together. If I could fix something about this piece I would change the camera, I do not believe I drew it properly and the shading on it is too dark or too light in some places on it. Also, along with fixing the camera I would make the shading on the largest vase darker in some places and the leaves in the vase more contrasting in their value. Overall I believe that this practice did help me and bettered my understanding of line quality.
This piece is a still life drawn with graphite pencil only. When choosing the items I would feature in this piece I chose two candles and a teacup that was my great grandmothers, I chose these because I believed they would look nice next to each other when drawn. When setting up I originally had them set on a blank table, but I spiced up the composition by placing my objects on a stack of books and covering those books with both a black and white cloth. When drawing this tried to incorporate both very dark shadows, the right side of the white cloth and the black cloth, and very bright highlights, on the candles or teacup. I think I succeeded in this, I made sure that where there was a dark value, next to it would be a light value so there were decent contrast and an interesting flow of the piece. Overall I am happy with the outcome of this piece and I believe that this piece furthered my knowledge of drawing shadows, especially when drawing fabrics.
This piece is a practice in one point perspective which is a drawing method that has all of the objects in the image converge until they reach one vanishing point, which can be found at the very center of my piece. The piece is inspired by a reference photo I took on my trip to Germany before my junior year, the photo is taken from a bridge over a highway in Munich. I didn't decide to keep the Olympic park to the left of the highway and I lowered the number of lanes so that it is a more balanced piece. I believe this piece was overall good practice for me because of the lines of the road and the divider in the road and the angle of the sign in the picture. As well as being good practice of one point perspective it was also a good practice for line quality with all the trees I had to draw. Overall I am happy with the outcome of this piece.
I had to focus on four things when making this piece, those four things are proportions, background, value scale, and shadows/detail. My first focus was proportions, and to make sure that the proportions of my face were correct I followed the guidelines from our portrait packet that we did in class as well as closely paying attention to my reflection while drawing this. My second focus was making sure I had a background of some sort, I just chose a plain grey background because I did not want the background to overwhelm my portrait or the messiness of my hair. Third, I had to makes sure I had a full value scale, which I think I achieved fairly well sine throughout the piece I have dark and light values everywhere (eye contrast, neck contrast, lip contrast, hair). Finally, I had to focus on using shadows and adding details, which I added a lot of details in the eyes, hair, and eyebrows, overall I am happy with the outcome of this piece.
I had to focus on four things when making this piece, those four things are accurate perspective, flesh, value range, and scrutiny of light. My first focus was accurate perspective, and to make sure that the perspective of my piece was correct I put two vanishing points outside the edge of my paper and made all lines go to those or be vertical. My second focus was making sure I had some kind of flesh in my piece, we were suggested to add a person standing in the piece, but I decided to go another route and make the flesh be a hand drawing an unfinished landscape drawing. Third, I had to make sure I had a full value scale, which I think I achieved fairly well sine throughout the piece I have dark and light values everywhere (contrast of the edge of the "paper", shadows on the hand, darkness of the pencil against the stark white paper). Finally, I had to focus on scrutiny of light, which was a bit of a challenge in this piece. The drawing that the hand is working on has a light source that is off to the right, shining on the diagonal wall, while the hand itself has a light source coming from above. Overall, I think I applied da Vinci's six parts of light quite well. In conclusion, I am fairly happy with the turnout of this piece, but may decide to redraw it one day.
This piece did not have many requirements when creating it. It was basically to incorporate all of our knowledge we have acquired in the class to create a drawing based on a reference image on gray paper. The tools used on this piece were a black charcoal pencil and a white charcoal pencil. The only tip we had while creating this was to not put the black and the white right next to each other when drawing, because it would look muddy. This was a challenge for me because much of the picture does have black and white right next to each other, so I went ahead and drew those parts with great care as to not blend the two shades. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of this piece and it is by far my favorite that I have made in this class.
