Study 3 Expressive use of Value
I originally had 3 skulls in my still life. It was way too busy, so I decided to focus on just one.
Sometimes my brain misunderstands information. I made 4 thumbnail sketches of the sheep skull in four different methods. ( Graphite, Charcoal, Extractive. Expressive). Now I think I was suppose to do 4 different perspective thumbnail sketches…
I did an under sketch with the willow charcoal. I am still so heavy handed. What should be a light sketch, still came out bold.
I started adding in charcoal and building up the layers of my drawing. I was thinking about not losing some fine detail by too much shading and darkness.
I had super fun with the expressive background in class, and wanted to include that technique in this background. I put it in and was very happy with my results. Then I realized I skipped a step and forgot to put the back shadow on the wall. I really liked the drawing as it was, but wanted to be true to the still life. (In hindsight I should have left it there.)
I added some fine lines and used the eraser to remove some tone. The shadow was put into the background and I hate it. At this point I am scared of ruining it more, so am going to stop here. I will revisit this drawing in the future and darken up that back shadow. It might ruin it even more.
I submitted it for marking. Afterwards, I just didn’t feel right. It needed to be taken further. When am I ever going to revisit this in the future? I came back up to the studio to work on it more. I added a darker charcoal shadow around the skull. This made the skull pop up, and show more detail. I was happy I did this. Now to see if I can re submit this revised drawing for grading!
