This was my original concept. The idea was for there to be a long body height mirror. In that mirror, we would see the person's reflection who was standing in the mirror. But honestly, I did not know how to get there. Which is part of the reason I did not pick this drawing anyway. I still was exploring the idea of the 2020 quarantine but the only way I could think of connecting that was with a mask. During the quarantine, many people have tough mental and physical changes. Being in isolation can have negative effects on someone. So, for the mirror, I wanted that to be the person they wanted to be and then the person looking in the mirror would be exhausted, etc. But since they would be facing the mirror, I would not really be able to show that, so I scratched the one.
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Okay, so this idea obviously stems from the first one. Same concept but a different way of showing it. For this, I was thinking of a parallel universe. Like Kathe Kollwitz, I wanted the emotion to be visible. This way it would be unlike idea number one. I ended up doing something similar but not the parallel universe. And I scratched the whole pandemic "mask" thing. Instead, I drew someone who could appear exhausted, stressed, or sad depending on how the person takes it. This way it could be easier to relate to because the pandemic period would be gone. Anyone who is going through or went through those emotions at any time could relate.
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So, while finishing the previous idea I started to brainstorm what exactly I wanted to do. Instead of running a practice sketch of what that looked like I decided to wait to do that. But here I wanted to test out the charcoal pencil so that I could decide which works best. Soft was easier to blend so I wrote down what I should use those for. I also found white worked well to create a muted gray if needed. This was helpful because then I was not experimenting on the final piece.
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To begin, I used an illustration board for my final piece. I roughly outlined what I wanted and perfected it as I went along. I found that since I lightly sketched with pencil it made it much easier to fix and change things. It also blended well with the charcoal pencils. I found using a ruler helped get the right angles.
Now for the fun part. Here I already began adding the charcoal I filled in the parts that I wanted to be dark. It was a little hard to keep the pigment in the area like the eyes because charcoal smears so easily, but I continuously went over it until I felt like it was dark enough. |
Here I focused only on reflection and based on the reflection would draw the backside of the other person. I found this easier to do than going back and forth.
In Kathe Kollwitz's art, the lines of charcoal are visible. I did that with mine but a little different. I did not want it to be unblended at all because that made it look unfinished. So, I slightly made lines visible but blended them as well. I did this by pressing very tightly with the pencil and I did multiple layers of the. After I did that, I added some lines with more pressure so that when I blended it the harsh lines were slightly visible.
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Here I just added more detail and depth to the sketch. Then after work, I focus on the other one. I based everything on reflection. I tried to mimic the shape of the bonnet and her body as best as possible from what would be a back view.
This is almost finished. After this I tweaked some minor things. As I mentioned before, charcoal smears easily so I retouch the eye and other small areas. I kept doing the technique I mentioned before because I liked how it looked. It resumed my campaign because of the emotion and strokes of charcoal.
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