Drawing final portfolio

 1.       My most successful project was my point of view drawing. It is a two point perspective drawing of the bakery in downtown Apex. I started by gathering reference photos and sketching out possible ideas. Next, I mapped out my paper by adding the two Vanishing points and drawing the basic outline of the building. After this I went back with a ruler to straighten lines and make corners crisper. To finish I went back and added more value. I added some highlights and darkened the shadows, and I was happy with the detail in the finished piece.

2. My least successful project was the contour drawing of the room. The point of the project was to get as much detail as possible without lifting your pen. Because of this there are ink spots all over the paper, and messy lines. Instead of having detail, it was just an outline of the things in the room. If I could fix this piece I would be more patient and add more detail. Instead of outlining the obvious shapes I would have tried to find creative ways to give the picture depth. 

3. Two pieces that show growth are my first self-portrait and my expressive self-portrait.  I did both pieces from a picture, and they are both only pencil. In the first self-portrait I was more focused on outlining the features of my face, and although I added shading it wasn’t enough. Also, the face was not proportional. In the expressive self-portrait, I used value to show the shapes of my face, instead of outlines. By adding shadows and bright highlights I was also able to create more depth. My eyes have more life in the expressive drawing too.

 4. Two mini lessons that I found beneficial were my practice eyes, mouths and noses, and the cloth drawing exercise. For the cloth drawing exercise there was a sheet in the middle of the room, draped over a cart that we had to draw. Going over how to draw fabric folds ended up being useful in a lot of my projects, especially the figure drawings. For the facial features practice I learned how to draw eyes, lips, and noses with value, so it wasn't just an outline. While doing this the quality and how realistic it looked improved greatly.

 5. My favorite medium to work with was pencil. With pencil you can get a wider range of values than most mediums and it’s easy to work with.  I liked how detailed I could make my drawings, but still have it look smooth after I was finished. If you are patient and really put an effort in you can make the transition to different values smooth. You can also draw texture really well with pencil, because you can work on small spaces.