Blog Post #3 - First Drawing and Shading Practice.

Final Drawing

Final Drawing Sketches

First Shading Worksheet

My first shading worksheet (to the right) was really fun for me. I have had some experience shading but I think this helped a lot. One thing that really helped me make the blends were the eraser and the side of the pencil. The eraser helped because it helped me smooth out the shading and the side of the pencil helped a lot because it made it so it looked like actual shading, not just multiple lines put together so that it looked darker. Although the eraser did help, something that I still struggle with in shading is blending the pencil so that it doesn't look as blocky.

       In my final drawing I decided to draw a paint brush.  I chose to draw it so that the paintbrush was slightly going off the page in two different places at an angle; the top and the right side of the paper.  I chose this composition because I think it really made the paintbrush look interesting and it was an unusual way to draw a paintbrush.  I chose it also because it followed the rule of thirds, I made it an open composition, its not symmetrical, and it followed the rule of odds.  Before I started to contour it I drew the basic shapes of the paintbrush, the wood, the metal that connects to the wood and then the bristles.  After that I started to draw the basics of the bristles and the bigger details in the metal of the paintbrush.  After that I started to draw the different paint splatters on the handle and metal of the brush.  At the end I worked with the shading.  The hardest part about this drawing I think, was the shading.  Having all of the paint splatters on the handle along with the different textures of the wood the metal and the bristles I don't think this was a good idea to draw first.  

Something that I want to improve in my final project is more detail within the shading. I also want to incorporate a better cast shadow and more detail in general in the wood and the metal.