final shell reflection

Besides this shell drawing being 3 times as big as the last one, there are a few differences between my most recent one and the previous one. I added more contrast in this drawing, because I learned from last time that my shell didn't pop out of the paper enough. I also decided to use heavier charcoal pencils to make it viewable from far away, because my last drawing was very light and difficult to see when standing 5 feet away. I also changed the angle of the shell, turning it upside down and backwards. In my previous drawing, I got mixed up with contour lines showing form versus the crease directions on the shell. So this time I decided to focus on the form instead of the crease lines.

I was struggling at first trying to figure out where and how I was going to draw on this giant piece of paper. I ended up finding a blank wall in my walk-in closet, so I pinned it up vertically and started drawing off of a picture I took of it. I had no table to put the shell on, so when I looked at the shell it would constantly be at a different angle. Therefore I figured taking a picture and looking at that angle would be more accurate. That gave me the outline shape of it in light pencil, and from there I turned some music on and started putting contours on. Since it was such a big shell, I kept on drawing different parts of it, going all over the piece of paper until it all came together.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the final outcome, but I really wish I had put more emotion to it and not made it so clean and organized. I'm always too scared to be messy, so that is an area I still need to work on. During the critique, that is mostly what we talked about. Amy also talked about making the overall form more organic and real looking, by altering the perfect lines to be more disorganized, forming a different shape, rather than a perfect curve. Even if the shell didn't look that way, I can always make things up to make the shell not as static.

It's scary when drawing on a big piece of paper like that, cuz I feel I only get one shot, so I better draw it the way I'm comfortable. So for the next shell, I plan on taking more risks.