Tag: FinalDrawings

For my final two drawings, I chose to focus on the prompt of narrative. The narrative I selected surrounded lovers in quarantine and feelings surrounding separation — as lots of people in love had to keep away from each other when the COVID-19 lockdown began. For the first drawing, I drew two black/African-American individuals in a romantic embrace in which one is kissing the other. This represented the time prior to the lockdown in which people roamed freely and were able to hold one another without fear of passing on the virus. For the second drawing, I drew two hands holding a picture of the same two people, but in the photo they were wearing masks. This was made to represent the time during the pandemic when areas began releasing mask mandates and lockdowns/periods of quarantine. For both works, I used a 6B and 8B graphite pencil as well as a black conte crayon.

For the second drawing, I chose to use a lot of lines in the background — to create a similar texture/pattern to that of a wood surface — after seeing how empty it was behind the photograph. I found myself going back and forth between both drawings to adjust the skin tones of the two individuals to make sure the values were the same.  

Something that was a challenge for me was texture — prior to this assignment I had never really drawn curly hair before and I had no idea how to. I wanted to signify that the two figures were African American not only through skin tone/value, but also through their hair (pattern/texture). I had to pull up more reference photos to figure out how to give the illusion of curls and coils. Additionally, I struggled with perspective — how could I demonstrate in the second drawing that the two individuals from the first were still seeing each other? The first idea was to have one on a laptop calling the other person, but I was displeased with it and decided not to go with it.

Most of my marks in both of the drawings are intentional — this includes the curls and coils of the hair. I didn’t have many problems with craftsmanship — I made sure of that by using lighter mediums this time around — but I did incorporate some marks into the drawing. For example, the dark color of the wooden surface in the second drawing was caused by accidental smudging of the black conte. Originally, I didn’t mean to smudge or blend the conte into the background, but after seeing how there weren’t a lot of dark areas, I decided to roll with it and keep on going.

I spent approximately 3 days in the brainstorming phase (brainstorming was due on the 21st but I needed an extra day to think some more). After the 22nd of April, I took an hour and a half each day (from the 23rd to 26th) in the planning phase. I ended up with a portion of the second drawing by the 26th that I was hesitant to post because I didn’t like how silly/cartoonish it looked — I wanted the body to look more semi-realistic. I ended up posting it, but later I scrapped it and started over with the photograph idea for the second drawing. After that, I took about two to three hours each day working on each drawing, constantly going back and forth to make sure the individuals looked the same. After settling on a skin tone, I struggled with deciding on other mediums because I didn’t want to mess up on what I already had. I decided that if I went too dark — compressed charcoal or vine charcoal — then I’d most likely ruin the work, so I settled on the conte stick for the curly hair.