Coming into Art 160, I had not been in a true art class since elementary school… so a whopping eleven years. I tried to convince myself several times to drop the class, but here I am. This first project was extremely intimidating to me because, at least as first, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to go into it with an open mind, but found myself incredibly frustrated. The first several days of the assignment, I tried to doodle and play to “loosen up.”

I tried a blind contour to try to get in the right head space and was happy with how it came out!
I also tried several thumbnails to get a feel for what I was doing.

It went okay, but I still wasn’t satisfied with that I was able to do! I was too focused on the product instead of the process.

When it was time to start drawing, I was incredibly nervous. I could sort of draw the shapes, but felt like I was struggling to figure out how to use the materials “correctly.” I personally think that in my first two pieces, you can see my frustration in trying to do this. However, completing both of these two drawings, although I was not in love with them, was incredibly fulfilling.

In this drawing, I mostly started with the ebony pencil, but ended up filling in the shading with the graphite stick and the compressed charcoal.


In the second drawing, I focused on the spacing of the shapes and attempted a contrast by shading with the charcoal pencil, mars pencil, and black conte stick.

Both of these are not my favorites because I just wasn’t super happy with how they turned out.

With my second two drawings, I think I got more comfortable with the materials and was able to use a wider variety of the materials on the two pieces. I also think I took contrast and shadows/highlights more into consideration with the second two pieces. I moved past just trying to only use the pencils and be less in control with the other materials. I enjoyed using the vine charcoal on my fourth piece more than I thought I would be. Although it was hard to control, it was fun to play with and interesting to see how its values came across.

This was my third piece, I was really proud of how the wood of the shelf turned out, although some of my proportions were off with the objects.
This is all four of my pieces together! I was happy to have completed this project!

I like specific parts of my second two pieces. My favorite thing to draw was probably the metal contraption from my fourth piece.

I was incredibly nervous for critique day because I have the tendency to harshly compare myself to others. However, everyone was incredibly kind and insightful. Seeing everyone’s unique perspective of the same objects was so interesting. Overall, I was happy to have successfully completed the four drawings using all of the necessary materials. In the future, I just want to continue to “loosen up” and be more confident in my abilities, but also my eraser. I am realizing it is okay to make mistakes, as long as I am trying.