Title: Staring Above & Welcoming Cat
Medium: Compressed charcoal and vine charcoal on white paper
Completion: August 20, 2021
Medium: Compressed charcoal and vine charcoal on white paper
Completion: August 20, 2021
Exhibition
Staring Above is mainly a warm-up or practice piece that helped me get used to the new techniques as well as the medium. Since at first I did not choose the object I could draw, I struggled with getting the right features, angles, and proportions. I am not good with drawing animals and mainly birds with many details. Welcoming cat is a piece that is more simple but has more depth. With this piece, I could choose the object I wanted to draw and I choose this because I am very inspired by Japanese art and the rich culture that it brings with it. In this piece, I had a better understanding of the medium, angles, and tones which helped me make this piece more interesting and fit the objective of still life.
Process
At first, I was already given an object that I was going to draw. I started looking at all of its features and played with the angles to see what looked best. I knew from the beginning that it was going to be hard for me to draw the bird at a good angle. After looking at many possibilities, I decided to draw most of the bird with only some of its tail missing and having it at a small angle where half of the bird's body was seen and looking at the left side. I also decided to leave its feet out and only draw the body of it. I first started with filling in the whole page with vine charcoal. It was hard for me to fill in the whole page with the dark color and I struggled with keeping it all in the same tones. Then I started sketching out the bird, starting with its head and body and then going through there. I then started to add some more detail to it, adding more feathers and placing features in certain areas. Next, I added darker tones to it and outlined some of its pronounced features. I only started working with its head, main body, and wings but still not with the end of its body or tail.
After doing the structure of the figure, I started using the compressed charcoal and adding even more details to it. I first went light with the compressed charcoal to test out how strong it was, and then just apply more firmness when I felt more comfortable. I mainly used the compressed charcoal on the neck of the bird and on the connections of its body with its wings. Since this was my first time using this kind of medium, I barely used this charcoal and did not give much depth to this drawing. That is why most of the drawing is light and does not have much contrast between the lights and dark's as well as not containing any shadow. Because this object had many details and I only worked on this piece for a little bit of time, I had to evenly distribute out the details of the piece with its tones.
Since I did not like the object that I was working with, I decided to draw a different object and work with that. I looked at the distinct and diverse objects available to me, and I ended up choosing the Japanese waving cat. I choose this object because I am starting to be very interested in Japanese art and there is something unique about it that attracted me to choose this piece. I started doing the same process as the bird which was to fill in the entire paper with vine charcoal and experiment with different angles. I decided to draw the entire cat and put it at a 45 degree angle. I sketched the body of the cat and worked with how big I wanted it to be. I then added the other pieces of the cat such as the coin, facial designs, and collar. I had a hard time working with the proportions of the cat, and had to erase many parts of it in order for it to all look the same. I also added more darker tones to specific areas and I even started to create the shadows it made. Next, I began to use the compressed charcoal and apply it to certain areas in order for it to have that more three dimensional look. This time, I was more comfortable with the compressed charcoal and I applied more of it in my drawing. I tried to give it a more depthful look but since I had very little time, I could not give it as much shape and tone as I wanted to.
Reference photos for Staring Above and Welcoming Cat.
Reflection
Both of my still life drawings had different processes and learning outcomes out of it. With Staring Above, I did not have a choice on whether I wanted to draw this object or not. Both pieces of drawings went through the same process: filling the entire paper with vine charcoal, outlining the body of the object, adding darker tones to certain parts of it, adding some detail, adding compressed charcoal to those specific areas, and working more with the detail of the object. I faced many challenges throughout the way and even with creating a second piece, I still made some of those same mistakes. I did not manage my time well and did not add as much detail to my first drawing. I also did not add a variety of tones to both of my drawings but mainly my first one. I did not work with much of an angle in Staring Above and some of my proportions were off. In Welcoming Cat, my proportions were also very off and I kept having to erase the cat’s face many times. Since it was my first time using this kind of medium, I learned many techniques and the advantages as well as disadvantages it has. It was good that this kind of medium only had one kind of color which meant you don’t have to focus very much on making sure the object and drawing are the same color and having to blend some of them. This medium is also great to give it the monotone look and emphasize on the shape and depth. Some of its disadvantages are that it is hard to make very detailed features and it is not meant for it to be detailed but rather hazy or vague. It is also very messy and after many times of erasing the marks, it becomes dark even though you do not want it to. In Staring Above, I did not like how I made most of the bird’s features and made it look very vague. The proportions were not the same throughout the entire piece and I did not apply as much contrast on a lot of the piece. The piece also lacked balance since most of the dark tones and details were in the left side of the piece. In Welcoming Cat, I had some of its body off proportion and I did not add as much contrast with the dark and light colors. There was not much depth to it and a lot of white space was left around the object. Although there were many things I disliked about this, I learned many things throughout the process. I learned how to set things in right angles and how to work out the proportions with it as well. I also learned how tone and depth went in with the angle of the object. Knowing how to use vine and compressed charcoal was something very great that I can apply to other mediums and learn from to perfect the techniques of it.