Carving Out The Light

In this piece of art my goal was to show the merge between the darkness and points of light. I was aiming to bring out the white light by carving it out with an eraser. I was able to use an eraser to carve out the light, a black piece of charcoal to darken up the areas in the back, and finally go in with white chalk to bring out the white areas even more. The portrait is about dramatic shadows, because it obviously shows the depth of the darkness and those shadows bring some serious drama towards any white areas. The most difficult challenge I had to face, was trying to keep the dark areas extra dark so that they looked very sharp and very black. Also trying to keep my arm from messing up the portrait itself, and trying to figure out the size of the pumpkins and where I should start them. My portrait really works in the background where the person is peeking over. This really works because it goes from the deepest black shade I use to the very white chalk and its very dramatic and big. I personally love it. Some of the things I have learned are that when using charcoal be careful where you place your arms/ body. Also I've learned that by simply adding in some bright light, and starting with the shadows instead of adding them in, can be a good thing sometimes. Peggy Kroll helped me again because I was able to use patches of color instead of distinct lines at some points. I learned from Gabrielle, as I would walk by and admire her portrait, how to  use the very dark charcoal and how much a difference in the drama you can really create. If I had a do-over, I would probably focus more on making the pumpkins look more realistic, instead of focusing so much on the darkest parts of the drawing. I feel best at how I was able to incorporate this artsy figure in the back and create a spooky Halloween picture, which really goes along with this time of year.