Assignment 1

The jar at the back of the drawing contains the ashes of my pet dog whom was very dear to me. He had a wild and static personality with I tries to portray in the texture of the jar.

The jar towards the right is a glass jar of spice which I use to mix my own paints. I tried to portray the gloss of the glass by using watered down ink and charcoal and I’m quite happy with the way it came out.

Towards the left is a velvet pouch given to me by my step mother who raised me. I used charcoal and water to portray the soft texture of the velvet.

In front of the pouch is an old make up container from France. France used to be my home when I was a baby, the container represents this. The container has a glittery surface and so I tried to portray all the spots of light and shadow by using oil pastel. I started with only using black but I was not happy with the range of tone and so used white as well.

The small Buddha statue is something my grandmother gave me and so it is quite special to me; Buddhism has also always intrigued me and I love learning about different religions. There are many small details on the statue and so I used my finest nib for my dip pen. I also went back and forth between using washes of ink and the dip pen.

I used that same ink technique on the acorn although I relied more on the dip pen and only used the ink wash in the darkest areas. The acorn represents the trip I went on to Greece and Italy, which was a large turning point in my life. While on the trip I was inspired to go into the field of archaeology and conservation which is also way I am currently working on my fine arts degree.

Around the acorn is a bracelet that was also gifted to me by my step mother. I used a mixture of charcoal and water to portray the smoothness of the beads. I also went in with some white charcoal to lighten up some of the areas that I felt were too dark.

Lastly I did the pocket watch, it was the gift I received after finishing school. It’s not very sentimental to me but I really like the look of it. Here I used a mixture of my gel pen and charcoal. I am not very happy with the result though and if I were to do the drawing again I may just leave it out.

I tried to use different textures/ mediums for the different objects however I don’t think I did a very good job at portraying emotion. There was difficulty when it came to the shadows of the different objects crossing over. I did not know where to end with one medium and start with the next, especially when it came to the area in front where the oil pastel and charcoal had to mix but overall I think it came out rather well.

following feedback from tutor

Not enough sketch book art (tutor). Not much progress/ development in my artwork(tutor).

Must draw more often and not just when I do exercises. To help encourage myself to draw more often I have made a new board on Pintrest where I can keep images for inspiration.

By drawing more often, the development of my skills will become more evident.