Quiet, 2022, Charcoal pencil

This depicts the lock for my garage art studio, my access point to a creative, beautiful space that is wrapped up in my personal goal to practice self-exploration through art and to become an art therapist.  I decided to work in the late afternoon because of the way the light reflects off the lock and metal plate at that time of day.  After preparing a thumbnail sketch to decide on proportions and placement, I began to draw, starting with the spinning letters on the lock because it was the darkest area.  Making lighter tones with strokes of the charcoal pencil was really challenging and took several tries before I was able to use the process to show the different materials in the drawing:  wood, metal, plastic.  I was happy with the results, and one of my big takeaways was to start with what catches my attention the most and work out from there. 

Morning Coffee, 2022, charcoal pencil.

This was my first experience of additive drawing with charcoal pencils, a process of layering on tone gradually with light strokes, avoiding erasing and blending.  To start, I drew the contours of my sculpture in my sketchbook, thinking about negative space.  When it was time to switch to the larger drawing paper, I struggled initially with scale and perspective.  The two beings were not sized correctly and did not meet up when I finished my draft.  I was frustrated and felt like I was getting bogged down in the details. In our next session, I tried to relax a bit and to put my focus on depicting the “main characters,” before getting absorbed in side details.  So, I worked on the tin can and the honey bear first (my husband and myself, respectively.) 

I wish I could count how many times, as a teacher, I supplied students with materials to build “junk art.” But this was the first time I did it for myself! Building a recycled beings sculpture was a lot of fun and I ended up loving my little family portrait.  I really like the coziness of its composition, and felt like there was a good variety of textures and tones to work with.