For this piece I chose to use pencil and paper, (8.5 x 11, in Sketchbook). For this piece I decided to do one of my favorite pocket knives, my CRKT Ripple. I mainly choose to keep the focus on shading technique and level of detail/realism.  Because the handle of this knife is metal, reflection of the light source was another thing I had to keep in thought.  

 This piece was to not only show my attention too detail, but also my curiosity and passion for tools that many of us take for granted in our everyday lives. The piece is also intended to not only portray the knife’s aspect of functionality, but it’s beauty through design. Like most tools, this knife has it’s own story and history. Mainly this work tells the story of quality and reliability.

 As many noted in a recent critique, this piece shows the understanding of shading and detail. The one improvement suggested, which I also agreed with was the idea of including some background. Note, it would not be a background that would fill the page, but a background that only gave the viewer enough context and nothing more.

 This photo is an in-process drawing including an observation of to knives, one new, and one old. I choose these two objects for the main purpose of including more than just one object, and additionally due to my interest in their design. As one can see, these two knives have contrasting designs, both of which I hope to convey through crosshatch shading, as well as drawing them in perspective. I plan only on using the one shading technique, however I may decide to take a different approach, such as smudging especially if it will better help convey the objects’ realism.

Completed Camera Drawing

 For this piece I chose to use pencil and paper (11x17). As was mentioned in a previous blog post, this piece was intended be mainly a practice for studying freehand perspective and different shading techniques. There was a fair amount of time that was spent drawing and redrawing the lens portion. This is something that will just have to come over time with a decent amount of practice.

 When this piece was critiqued there was not very much constructive criticism. Many believed that the piece was well executed, especially in regard to the shading. Though it was well received by the audience, there are certain aspects, such as parts of the perspective which will have to be improved upon in the future. 

 As noted earlier the main strength of this piece is its shading. One of the primary reasons for this is because it was what the most time was spent on. Once again, improving the perspective would be most easily executed by taking more time to set up the structure of my drawing.

Lily Mae Martin Artist Comparison

 The artist I chose to compare my most recent piece with is, Lily Mae Martin. She  resides and works in Victoria, Australia. The piece of hers I chose is similar in two main ways. First off it is an older camera, an old Kodak Brownie to be specific. The second and most important reason is because she uses similar shading techniques such as crosshatching, and line weight using pencils with different softnesses. All lines in this work appear to be prominent and quite crisp. This causes it to really pop out at the viewer. 

In Process Camera Drawing (Minolta Maxxum 9000)

 This is an in process freehand drawing of an old Minolta camera. I originally started this piece because I needed several observational drawings in order to meet certain college portfolio requirements. As a lot of my artwork shows, I tend to be more abstractly and hands-on focused. I have done observational drawings in the past, but it was awhile back. My main goal for this piece was to use it as a way for me to delve into more observational drawing and different shading techniques as well as improve upon my freehand understanding of perspective.

Octopus Drawing Update

 For this piece I decided to add some color to give it a bit of umph. This decision was made once again after receiving comments about doing something to remove the excess white space. I though this was a great idea although I didn’t want to use colors that one would usually associate with an octopus. So, giving it a little thought I chose to go with a pop-art sort of feel, choosing to give the drawing a bright colors and clean lines. 

Table Drawing Update

The only change made to the table drawing was the finishing of the grey floor. This was changed mainly because I had received several comments on the floor and how it did not appear to be finished. After making the change I the piece was almost instantly more visually appealing to me.