The Creature In My Room

  Tuesday, May 23rd-     The final day, I spent most of today running around and tieing up loose ends. I started rather late today after working late the previous night but with that, I spent the majority of the day catching up on assignments and covering mandatory tasks. Eventually sitting down and working on my piece a bit after 3:00pm, working between other tasks until 9:30pm for a dorm meeting.  In the time spent working, I mostly focused on figuring the hair out. I have previously mentioned that I enjoy drawing or painting hair, however, in this piece, it's proven difficult to find a balance in detailing. I believe I will spend some of the in-between hours tomorrow working to refurbish the hair a bit, as well as significantly finishing up the background. From the few people who have seen my piece, they all commented on the contrast of the foreground to the background. I was already going to do this (as I always planned on it and I think it looks good), but more so I will focus

  Sunday, May 21st-     Unfortunately, this Weekly Reflection will be on the weaker side, as I was absent for the majority of the week so there is only so much I can write about. I have been working to be able to be present for m y brother's graduation from Colgate University in upstate New York. While it was amazing and all the transportation chaos to get there was worth it. The main focus must now return to progress and reflection!     Before leaving, however, this week was also quite busy with work. Despite being absent for three and a half days my hour total is twenty-four hours, which was necessary for my time fulfillment and my piece's progress. Looking back on the week, it is quite intense how quickly the piece developed, going from light shading and untouched areas to how it nearly looks now at the very end of the week.     The two photos were taken a day apart, almost exactly twenty-four hours, and although it is obvious to anyone, it shocks me the most how different t

  Thursday, May 18th-     Hello, unfortunately, today will be a very brief blog as I was only on campus until 11:00 am. Last night was mostly working and figuring out today's travel plans, so I packed up this morning with about an hour and a half  of blending on the piece then headed off! I am now currently writing this before my flight out of Logan and considering whether or not I should show people my current piece. There are many sides to showing people unfinished work, some people think you should leave it as is, others point out something you never noticed, and some are both aka my mother. Luckily people have responded very positively so I am excited to get some feedback before my final push. -Written @ 4:23pm

  Monday, May 22nd-      Arriving back on campus around 5:00pm, I spent my first two hours or so unpacking and finally getting some blogs up! With this being my first time with my piece since Thursday morning, I noticed a few things in the piece. Such as the bottom row of teeth being too low, the neck needing more work, and the head now with hair being quite large... OH WELL!! NOT MUCH I CAN DO ABOUT THAT NOW ehhehehe, it looks fine...  Also from henceforth, with some inspiration from my roommate, I will now be updating with sneak peek photos for the final piece to be perceived in person as it should be. So while working I enjoyed occasionally taking some very zoomed-in photos and relearning my process. Such as around 11:00 pm or so, I was perplexed as to why I wasn't able to achieve the same blend gradient and I realized I had forgotten what tools and brushes I was using.            Focusing on the actual process, as mentioned in my days away and in the times I looked back at the

  Wednesday, May 17th- Following multiple rather productive days, my momentum is slowing a fair amount. I've reached a point where everything has been started and now the finishing details and work is all that's left. In other words... extremely tedious and slow work.  My main focus after Tuesday's long push has been hair, it's going well, Logan and I were joking about making their hair a bit more voluminous as Logan's hair in the photo was still a bit wet and rather flat. But having some fun with that, it seems to have coincidentally made Logan's shoulders much slimmer than in the original photo. That'll certainly be my focus for tomorrow morning and when I return! Nonetheless, for current progress, the base layer is complete with the hair now started. So far my only concern for the hair is being able to show the depth and difference of curls, having a distinction between the locks. I do enjoy drawing hair though as I've always thought the lighting and

Sunday, May 14th: The Creature In My Room      Anyways!! So I decided to begin with the inspiration and reference piece. A candid evening photo I took on my adored digital camera, as I had earlier decided on my roommate Logan to be my model. Since I wanted something more challenging than a singular flower blossom but I needed someone who was present (so family and dogs were out of the equation).         With my goal being a realistic rendition of sorts, it is absolutely necessary for the proportions, scaling, and features. Especially considering that charcoal is a medium that can never fully be erased, this is something I always struggle with when using charcoal. While I have briefly mentioned this scaling style a few times, I believe its importance deserves to be restated. So as proportions are so important, the surest way of success is using a grid technique. Often referred to as the 'realism grid method' or Kelly Grid and laddering which are more on the mathematical side. Be

  Tuesday, May 16th-      Today I put into action the fact that I need to speed up the process a bit in order for me to finish on time with my absent days coming up. In order to accomplish that, I worked about 11 hours... writing that is odd to me, but yup, I watched six Peaky Blinders episodes and listened through an entire five-hour playlist. At one point today I lay down on the floor and it was the most euphoric feeling I had felt in days.         I spent the majority of today working on the shirt, I still have another hour or so of work on it before I can say it's done. Then from there, I moved on to the hair, it's pretty obvious that I stated in the bottom right corner, but hopefully, by the end it'll all look as detailed and later even better. I also hope that I will be able to mask the fact that the shirt looks so much better than the rest of it, as briefly mentioned before, drawing clothing is something oddly natural to me. So along with finishing up the hair mostly

Monday, May 15th-      Alrighty, so along with Sunday I've put in a fair amount of overtime in order to finish before I leave campus for my brother's graduation. And unlike past blogs, there honestly isn't much new to say about my process or day. From about Saturday on out, about all I do is shading now, I do highlights at the very end, but now I am working to find the darkest points and final details.      For example I believe this was the end of the day on Sunday, I had finished off the face on Saturday and now turning to the shirt's details. This part is where finding the darkest points really comes in as it is the darkest object in the original photo. In order for the rest of the drawing to be even with the photo, I need it to be true as dark yet detailed and blended as possible. For as much time I spend on this piece and for how much I enjoy being able to work on art all the time, I wish I somehow had more to say. But my work is truly just staring at an extremely

Saturday, May 13th- Once again focusing on the face, I move in with new tools and techniques to clean and remodel parts of the face. Taking occasional breaks from the face to do more layers on the shirt and hair, to which I then was able to continue on the face again. I did struggle a bit with the amount of detail I put in, because if one part reaches a certain amount of detail then it needs to be continuous over the entire piece, so I am still working to figure out what that point is.  This is a picture I believe I took Saturday or maybe Friday night, my blogs have been a bit off as I have been working on the piece and unsatisfied with how I leave it so I'll keep working before I post it on a blog... Luckily though I am getting much happier with the face, my natural success in drawing has always been fabric/clothing, so having the face work out as well comforts me in how the final will turn out. -In the meantime here are some of the beautiful blooms around campus! Oh and between m

  Firday, May 12th- Ok, so something is clearly wrong with the face, and while I was staring at two zoomed-in photos, one of the actual photo and the other of the current drawing, I noticed some slight but key differences.  (And yes I did print out another photo and cut it to match the drawing) -I am just going the describe the differences I noticed and am focusing on because I don't know what else to write about.       Ok, so the key differences are that the bridge of the nose's angle is off by a couple millimeters, the neck starts too far back, and while the bottom teeth need to be redone they are off nonetheless. As well as the upper lip is too sharp of an angle and the cupid's bow needs to be raised... So small stuff, but basically all work I do before hair and background will be just this minute. However, I am excited for the coming weekend as I am planning to work on the hair a lot! Also, this afternoon was the first time I've walked through campus in a while and

Thursday, May 11th-       Thursday was much less focused on detail and much more so on shading. I like to make art be some magical trick of the eye, as in the better of an artist you are, the better you are at creating things into something else.      Such as how I am currently trying to make this piece look less sh*t in my humble opinion of my own art... Anyways, a huge part of all art is shading to create value and depth, the actual trick of the eye is created by both of those. When a piece of paper and some cremated vines becomes an image that, most importantly, is recognizable as the subject it was made of.                   As such, here is a side-by-side of yesterday's end piece and today's photo. Still, a long way to go with shading alone, as in order to get the actual value difference between points like skin and the much darker t-shirt, a lot of layers are needed. Otherwise, today went rather satisfactory as I have never tried the brushing technique for charcoal and I&

Wednesday, May 10th-     My Wednesdays begin with morning gym duty, so after getting there ten minutes late I tortured myself in my workout. Now that I can't walk properly, I spent the rest of the day sitting and working. In other words, after a brief time stressing and wondering if I should choose a different photo before doing its grids, I went to find my model who is working diligently in the metal shop. -Featuring Lucifer (Lucy) We took some photos, but in the end, we both preferred the candid expression and lighting in the original choice. So I spent the morning mostly editing out and delicately graphing the photo to match the grid already on the paper- After a good few hours to get down the exact details- from grid to grid so everything is at least in the right place. From here on I will actually be able to start drawing freely as everything is preportioned! With a solid six hours again I am very excited for tomorrow as the real drawing process can actually begin!! -Written @

Tuseday, May 9th- Tuesday began with another lovely breakfast accompanied by some worries; reference photos. Lighting, background, expression, basically any nature of the photo and how well it will transfer to 2D and black and white. First at a bit after 8:40, was taking some new reference photos and choosing from past ones, such as this likely candid photo from the other night. After having some preferred photos I'd briefly look them over in editing through cropping and exposures. Once I'm satisfied I head over to the Library to print them out! (An extra note is how common grid scaling is! This was a Pinterest search for detailed charcoal portraits and a little way down all of these can be found.) With all of that, leads to this beautiful temporary scaling of Logan's face... This has at least assured me that I will be using thinner lines in editing. After scaling out a separate piece of paper, I begin dusting off my charcoal and grid work. It's been a good year or so b

  Exciting, exciting- Day 1. Monday, May 8th Today began with breakfast for the first time in weeks, suddenly the will to live returned after I wasn't living for my classes... which I dearly loved. However, after breakfast, in Slocumb at 8:50 I began collecting some supplies and plans for today. The largest board I found had a few nicks and slight splintering, I wish I was joking about something so minor but my fear of hitting a bump or tearing the paper is unmatched. As such, I made my way to the Wood Working shop to sand over the paint and splinter marks. Also meeting this sweetie who loves back scratches! This led to a brief meeting with Mosely during my daily journey for medications, he had a tick wandering his fur, so many ticks!  Returning to Slocumb after a brief intermission, I am now able to tape down and measure the paper. It might sound odd but the most important beginning of the piece is the mathematic resizing of my reference photos. This will make more sense when my p