Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Challenge #28: October 29 Challenge

Self-Portrait (Sketching in Charcoal/Pastels)

Martha's narrative, adding tendrils onto an
image transfer map of her community.

Let's end with a series of self-portraits. The first, using the new mediums that have arrived. Some of you have vine charcoal and some have nu pastels. Get a feel for the medium(s). Both are messy and lush in the color and line they leave on the page. 

Make yourself happy and structure this self-portrait the way you want. 

But remember it is a sketch.

If you want some direction, consider these options. 
  • Work with a beautiful, lush line. Only a line. That's it. Aim for simplicity and let the medium create the style and mood.
  • Work again with the contour of your face/head, but use the medium for shading.
  • Work with your profile.
(For the next day we will add an image transfer self-portrait as one of the possible sketches. I will give you a couple of options. But if you want to try an image transfer, self-portrait, make sure to get a few items lined up: (1) a photocopy of a photograph of you (it has to be a photocopy or laser printer copy; an inkjet copy will not work) and some packaging tape. Most likely you have some laying around, but regular old packaging tape will work.)

63 comments:

  1. I enjoyed doing a self portrait. I made mine in an abstract way because I knew in 15 minutes I would not be able to get mine spot on.

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  2. I enjoyed working on this challenge again and using the pastels! My image really reflected my mood today and when I look back on it will remind me of how I was feeling. Fun to do.

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  3. I really like using pastels so having them to use on this challenge made it very enjoyable for me!

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  4. This challenge was fun, but hard because I am not good at drawing faces, so it does not really look like me.

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  5. I like using the pastels a lot but it was hard to draw myself because i find it difficult to sketch people, but it was fun to try it out!

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  6. Its always tough drawing a self portrait only using one line, especially with pastels, which adds to the mess. Though it was a mess, it adds to the emotion of the self portrait, which I like.

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  7. I liked using the pastels. The colors I have are very bright and look cool on the page!

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  8. I like the way the materials feel on the paper but I am still uncomfortable drawing myself.

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  9. I was feeling colorful today so i made my self portrait with all my colors. I found it very difficult to do this activity with pastels because they are so messy but nonetheless it was fun.

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  10. The pastels were awesome to use. The colors are very different from what I have been working with and it was a nice change of pace.

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  11. Using pastels was fun but messy sometimes when adding colors they got mixed and I ended up with some stains in my portrait. Other than that using pastels was cool,

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  12. I love these new materials, but I am not a fan of self-portraits, so this was both fun and very challenging for me.

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  13. I was not to comfortable drawing myself because that is not one of my strong suits. However I took this opportunity to be more abstract and I loved using the pastels.

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  14. I really enjoyed this challenge and pastels might be my favorite thing to use when it comes to art now.

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  15. The parameter of a single line opened this challenge up for me a great deal. I found the pastels to be able to create a wide variety of tone, making the line more than a line. I also explored the line by using the wide edge of the medium, allowing for a lot to meet the page at a single point in time.

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  16. I really liked working with the pastels. They are very messy, but I think that you get a great color when using them.

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  17. I love using the pastels. I think that they make every color pop a little bit more and help to make my self portrait stand out. I made sure to incorporate a lot of color in my self portrait. I wanted to be very vibrant.

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  18. I loved using the pastels to create something so intricate. Instead of drawing my face to look just like me, I made sure to add my own touch and make it somewhat "messy" and imperfect. I was able to use smudging with the pastels which added a different feel to my overall drawing.

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  19. Love using the pastels for my work. Even though they get everywhere, the ability to blend colors makes them easily my favorite medium. looking forward to using them more and more.

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  20. I loved that we were able to use pastels for this challenge. The colors are very clear and vibrant, making the page pop. It gave my self portrait a unique look.

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  21. It was really fun to use the new pastels and the line technique. It allowed way for a more abstract portrait.

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  22. This challenge was fun. I enjoy using the pastels and I like the effect they have on my self-portrait.

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  23. This challenge was hard because I have discovered that I am horrible at drawing people. I had to keep in mind that it was a sketch and not a mini-masterpiece. However, it was still fun to complete this challenge and I really enjoy working with the pastels!

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  24. I decided to just go for it. With a new medium, I wanted to experiment with how lines would cross and colors would mix. It actually came out pretty awesome!

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  25. This challenge was fun but mine looks horrible! I chose a bunch of bright colors to work with and I think it put some personality in my drawing!

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  26. Working with the profile on the contour drawings was completely different than the straight on drawings, especially using the medium of pastels.

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  27. This challenge made two things very clear to me: I really love working with pastels, however, I hate drawing self portraits and people in general. My self portrait looks nothing like me but I fell in love with the colors I chose to use.

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  28. I hate drawing self portraits! I enjoyed the colors I chose to work with, which are based around blue hues. I'm indifferent to the pastels. They were a bit messy to work with as I got a bit of the pastels on places I didn't want any color on. It was a great challenge to start using the pastels with since I got some exposure on using them for fine details and also for shading large areas.

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  29. This challenge was difficult because I didn't know how to make a face, nevermind my face, out of bright colors. I did like working with the pastels though

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  30. These pastels were very messy and tough to sketch with! It is a much more vibrant color than using colored pencils.

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  31. Although I do not like drawing self-portraits, this challenge was fun because pastels make the image pop on the page.

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  32. I am terrible at making faces, so I ended up doing a close up so that I could focus on the colors more rather than worrying if my eyes are even. So, I focused on half of my face and had a lot of fun using colors that didn't make sense and wouldn't typically be there.

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  33. Using pastels was easy and fun.... A bit messy though. Working with pastels was fun bc you got the image to just pop rght out of the page and the leftover dust from the pastels smudges, creating a whole new prospective to your sketch.

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  34. This was fun to be able to play around with the medium following some sort of guidelines. I'm interested to see what the sketch will look like tomorrow after spending a day in my backpack.

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  35. I love working with pastels. I love the shading of the colours. I enjoyed this challenge, it was relaxing and fun. I am waiting for the best part, which will be the imprint on the other page.

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  36. It was very interesting to create a self portrait using pastels, but it was also fun to play with the different colors I chose for different elements of my face.

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  37. I really like using the pastels! It was difficult to draw myself but I think it turned out okay. I liked drawing myself with the colors I chose.

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  38. Using pastels is pretty fun! The only thing that bothers me a bit, is their chalkiness and how easily they smudge. Pastels are definitely a good option if you have the right blending techniques.

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  39. YIkes. This was hard. I had lots of false starts and still don't have anything that I am satisfied with. I could not focus hard enough on what I wanted to do. In my mind with all the rules I thought I knew about drawing a face--like standard face geometry but when it came to my face, I could get those rules right. Neither, could I draw what could have been a good enough caricature.

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  40. I am not good at doing self portraits....but I love using the pastels as a new medium it gives the image a different texture when you are sketching.

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  41. I loved using the pastels a lot, however, I struggled with this challenge because I am not that good at doing self portraits.

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  42. I love working with pastels! The results of this particular challenge weren't what I would've necessarily hoped for, but I do enjoy the texture and shading of the medium.

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  43. I made my portrait using the bricks of color and an elegant line to represent my head.

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  44. I didn't have pastels so I had to work with the charcoal. I don't really like the charcoal all that much. I wish I could have worked in color, but I made the best with what I had.

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  45. I really love working with the pastels we got in class the other day. They are messy but look nicer and have a better end product. I liked this self portrait mainly because of the medium I used

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  46. I enjoyed working with the pastels for the self portrait, rather than the others where we used pencil. I found it easier to do working in pastels.

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  47. i liked this activity a lot because i feel like the self portraits are kind of my strength so it wasn't overwhelming. i used gouache to add color to mines.

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  48. I enjoyed working with the self portrait again in a new medium, even though my portrait looks very abstract I think it came out really cool!

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  49. The pastels were a bit messy, but I am in love with their beauty. The colors that I choose really brings a picture together. This was one of my favorite challenges so far just because I like the pastels a lot and seeing the progression of my self-portraits.

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  50. I enjoyed working witht he pastels and drawing a self portrait again. this helps me improve my artistic skills especially sketching skills.

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  51. I enjoyed this activity because I find creating self portraits simple and also i love to use the pastels.

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  52. i love using pastels! and drawing self portraits again help me to improve my artistic skills!

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  53. I enjoyed this assignment because I got to use pastels !!!

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  54. I used the pastels again and it's my favorite utensils so far. I love the way it looks on paper and it brings out the 3d look of my sketches

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  55. I loved using the pastels.. they were very new to me but reminded me of sidewalk chalk. They mixed really well together, especially the purples and pinks I chose.

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  56. I like the texture the charcoal sticks give on the page, it gives the image an uplifted effect

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  57. I like the pastels for the self portrait. It really brought out the futures in my hair and face. It was fun, but looks kinda creepy

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  58. I loved the pastels. The colors were so bold and vibrant, I also loved how they blended together.

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  59. I thought I liked the gouache the best, but I think the pastels are my new favorite. I love using the pastels. They make the sketch more unique

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  60. I really enjoyed doing this challenge. working and experimenting with the pastels was very messy, but a lot of fun

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  61. Sticking to my tendency to use black and white pretty often, I chose to work with the charcoal. I did an up close portrait of my face. It doesn't quite look like me, but I did have fun doing it. Blending with fingers really completes working with charcoal.

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  62. I really enjoyed this challenge. Even though using pastels was very messy I found it very entertaining and interesting seeing how pastels work.

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  63. This challenge wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, I wasn't expecting my sketch to look like a face but it did.

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