using charcoal

Here are some charcoal drawings that we did in class. As you can see my work progresses and gets better as I practice using the charcoal. This exercise was surprisingly fun, I was hesitant at first because I had never tried using charcoal but I fortunately learned a lot from this exercise. 

This exercise was on of the first exercise dealing with objects. As you can see we had to draw the objects below. 

Social justice issue illustration- gay teen suicide

My topic for my social justice issue illustration project is about teens committing suicide for being gay. In the news lately there have been at least 5 young teens that have committed suicide after being bullied because of their sexuality. There have been too many hate crimes against gay bashing and it is something that I feel very passionate about and believe that we should all have apart in making sure this stops. I dedicate my illustration to all of the kids in elementary school, middle school, high school, and college that are being bullied or being picked on for their sexuality or for whatever reason. 

I didn't have an original plan for my illustration but I knew that I wanted my illustration to deal with teen suicide. My first step was to look up pictures of bullying. I came across a picture of a young girl with a black eye with her head leaned up against a brick wall. I loved this picture because her face looked extremely sad and depressed which was the exact same expression I wanted to express in my illustration. This picture to the left is one of the many pictures that I took of my best friend to get an idea of the exact look and position that I wanted my illustration to look like. 

I decided to draw an illustration of a young girl leaned up against a brick wall with flowing lines that looked droopy and I wanted her face to feel like it was melting away.The idea of a rope around the girls neck to symbolize a suicide was an very literal idea that came to mind that I wasn't sure I wanted to incorporate or not. While playing around with the idea of a rope, I realized it should be a rainbow colored rope to let the audience know that my illustration was about gay teen suicides. 

My illustration depicts the idea of gay teen girl being hanged by the a strong hand at the top right hand corner which represents society that bullies and picks on the young gay teen. This illustration gives the audience a sense of responsibility for the young teens suicide. 

      
                                                                                

Complicated form using continuous-line blind contour line method

These complicated forms are drawn using blind contour line method. The key to this is to not let your eyes move more quickly than you can draw. Distortion and inaccurate proportions are a part of this excersie and in order to improve it is important to frequently do these blind-contour drawings of wide variety of subjects.   


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Continuous-line observed contour line method

A contour line is a single, clean, incisive line, which defines edges. Starting these drawings I began at the outside edge of my subject and continued drawing while glancing at the subject.

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Continuous-line blind contour line method

In these blind contour line drawings, I kept my eye on the different hand gestures and imagined that the point of my pencil was in actual contact with it. It is important to keep constant cantact with the subject and let your hand do the drawing. The key to this is to not let your eyes move more quickly than you can draw.

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