Tag: Art

My Favorite Drawings

By: Anna Kate Coker

Throughout my highschool years, I have taken Drawing classes including Drawing 1 freshman year, Drawing 2 sophomore year, Drawing 3 junior year and ultimately AP drawing this year. I have done different projects including graphite, colored pencil, and charcoal. 

Sight

This graphite drawing illustrates the theme of sight. I took the reference photo of a boy covering his face but opening his hands slightly to where his eyes are the main part exposed. This choice leads the viewer to focus on his eyes. I used a blurred background to contrast with the detail on the face, making a dark ambiance surrounding him. I chose to use graphite for this project in order to keep the black, grey, and white color palette to make it feel dramatic. 

Locker Room

This colored pencil drawing portrays a locker room, filled with basketball jerseys and shoes. When taking the reference picture, I put a brighter color filter over it, giving me the ability to make the original, dull picture a vivid and bright color complexity. This challenged me to blend opposite colors together to create a multicolored piece of artwork. I chose colored pencil for the medium in this drawing so I could have more options and colors on the spectrum.

Duke

This detailed colored pencil drawing pictures a Great Dane. I decided to choose to draw this in color so I could get all of the undertones of the dog’s fur. Using blues, reds, yellows, greens, and purples, I laid each color down in different spots creating dimension and layering to the black fur. I had to find the undertones I additionally added the background, giving it a blurred effect to keep the dog as the center focus. 

Swimmer

I created “The Swimmer” to illustrate human movement in an active motion. The swimmer, portrayed through graphite, pushes through the water creating splashes and waves. This depicts this person gliding in the pool with the strength to pull himself forward. With every stretch the swimmer takes, the liquid moves equally. I contrasted the graphite with blue colored pencil to add more depth.

Drawing in Colored Pencil

By: Lottie Bynum

Drawing in colored pencil is different from drawing on other mediums such as pastels, charcoal, or graphite. Unlike those, colored pencils cannot be blended with blending stumps, instead they are blended with other colored pencils. It’s perfect for vibrant or strong colors in a piece.

To draw in colored pencils you need:

  • Paper that works with colored pencils(most regular or sketch paper works)
  • Colored pencils (wax or oil based)
  • Sharpener or X-Acto knife (to sharpen)
  • Erasers (regular and electric eraser to get the color lifted from the paper)

To start a colored pencil drawing start in graphite pencil and sketch lightly, then add colored pencils.Have scratch paper on hand to try color combinations if you are unsure because colored pencil doesn’t erase as well as other mediums (it’s similar to 6B charcoal and leaves behind a tinted page). Another tip to consider is start lightly and build up the lightest parts before moving to the darker parts so the values in the piece can be fully recognised. Value can be added not only that way, but also when considering the color wheel and contrasting colors. Red and green, orange and blue, and purple and yellow can darken each other and add contrast instead of shading with black which can flatten instead of adding depth to the drawing. 

Depending on which colored pencils you are drawing with can impact the care of the drawing afterwards. Regular or wax based colored pencils can leave a residue on the piece after it is finished that needs to be wiped off, but oil based colored pencils have less of a problem with the residual sheet it leaves on a finished piece. 

Style is another factor of how someone can draw with them. Many people prefer to draw lightly without marking the paper fully which has the piece with some of the paper, showing through the colored pencil. That is not the only method though, colored pencils can deepen in color and coverage the harder someone presses when drawing with them like charcoal, pastels, or graphite. When pressing harder with the colored pencil it is helpful to blend with several other pencils, possibly complementary colors to add shades of color instead of the color being flat. 

Overall colored pencils are fun to work with and can be drawn with in several styles.

Drawing Processes for Charcoal

By: Lottie Bynum

To draw in charcoal, people should have a few things:

  • Charcoal pencils (2-6B to start off with as well as white charcoal)
  • Blending stumps(if you can’t get them blending with your fingers is okay!)
  • Sandpaper (to clean the blending stumps)
  • Paper that works with charcoal (a thicker more textured paper, not like printer paper)
  • Various kinds of erasers(kneaded, normal, electric, and any other you would usually use)

Other than that there are other decisions to consider: the way to sketch your drawing or if you are going to sketch in the first place. I like to sketch in graphite pencil to get all of my ideas and shapes down before going into darker charcoal because pencil is easier to erase for mistakes in the first iteration. Also from the list above it lists blending stumps which are kind of soft rolled pieces of paper to help blend out the charcoal. Blending stumps are very helpful in drawing with charcoal, however blending with your fingers if you don’t have blending stumps still works! Unlike with graphite, charcoal is less impacted by the oils on skin and doesn’t cause the drawing to yellow over time, like it does with graphite. Another alternative is using paint brushes to blend. Although that is a different method of drawing in charcoal, it usually involves powder charcoal on paper where the artist “paints” with charcoal to create beautiful images. Sandpaper, as stated above, can be used to clean blending stumps and get them back to a fine tip, but isn’t totally necessary(I don’t use it, I never learned how to haha). Paper which works with charcoal is usually a more textured thicker paper to hold onto the charcoal as something smooth like printer paper or notebook paper could cause the charcoal to not adhere to the page correctly and cause it to smudge easily. Erasers are a crucial part of charcoal drawings as they cover up mistakes but also add to the ability to add value to the drawing and fine details. 

To draw in charcoal try and stick to small lines as charcoal spreads far so, a little goes a long way! For charcoal pencils I almost never use the 2B as I find it hard to blend but try it for yourself and see how it works with the style you are going with. Since charcoal is so dark, work with the considerations for your lights in the drawing as to not become too dark where it will become hard to lighten it back up. White charcoal can be used to lighten places but it often adds a cool tint to wherever it is added to so keep that in mind. Another thought for the pencils is to keep a good sharpener or X-Acto knife on hand to sharpen the pencils for a fine tip. Charcoal is brittle so it can easily break and X-Acto knives are great for handling the pencils when a sharpener is too rough(on this note try not to drop your charcoal pencils too much because of their brittleness their charcoal core can break inside the wooden exterior and cause it to be hard to draw or sharpen them). After that, just have fun drawing!

The Barn Door

Artwork and Article by: Emmi Leard

         This art piece was finished November 15, 2022. This piece is made with just graphite pencil. There are different aspects in the piece including: the wood on the door, the cinder blocks of the barn, the metal of the frames and lastly the fabric of the halter and rope. 

         I started this piece by sketching a graph. The graph is just symmetrical lines in horizontal and vertical patterns. I printed out the photograph I worked from and used math to adjust the graph to the correct sizing. After completing the door, I drew the metal of the door then worked my way up the paper. I continued back down and finished my drawing with the cinder blocks. Usually when I draw I try to get the center or most complicated part out of the way first. 

         I always come across a tough spot along the way. In this piece, my thought spot that I had to keep coming back to was the fan. The ceiling fan or the oval looking thing was hard because of the way it’s set. I had to use artistic liberty to make it work with the piece.