Jonathan Campbell – ART 104: Drawing I, Fall 2019

Negative Space Still Life

For this drawing, I tried to use negative space and contrast to define its lines instead of harder lines, to a degree of success. At first, the canvas was full of charcoal, and slowly erased away to detail the shapes.

I think I could’ve done better on this drawing. While I’ve upped the contrast on the picture, it has some obvious lines, as well as an overall messy look. Some shapes are easily made out, but others are less defined and trickier to analyze. If I redid this, I would likely be more deliberate in what I erase.

Cross-Contour Still Life

For this drawing, I wanted to do a still life with some negative space qualities, as well as use cross contour and shading to give the objects depth in an interesting way. First, I drew out the objects in the still-life, then I drew the contour lines in. After that, I shaded in the shapes, letting the graphite contrast with the contour lines. Finally, I filled in the background to contrast with the objects in the frame

I think the visual effect could have been better executed with a more consistent background color, as well as shaded the shapes in darker to make the white color pop more.

That said, I’m happy with the concept and now have something to further develop if I want to.

Hand Contour Drawings

Ten contour line drawings of hands in various poses, including a finger pointing up, and a thumbs up.

This is a set of hand contour drawings I did when we were studying contour lines. My main focus was attempting to get a variety of “poses”, which I modeled on my left hand. I tried to avoid doing typical gestures to make it easier to draw from sight, and not from memory. I think I was mostly successful in this.

It was a little tricky, however, as it’s more difficult to correct mistakes in contour line without losing detail, and it’s additionally difficult to do detail in general.

I feel I did better with the smaller hands, as they look better proportioned.