Drawing + Imaging: Digital Grisaille

One of the projects I liked doing the most from drawing and imaging class was the digital grisaille task. I liked this the most because I got to work in both analog and digital drawing and through this project, I began to really enjoy doing perspective drawings. We started off with two perspective still life drawings that incorporate a light source that will create cast shadows. Before we began this project, we practiced drawing cast shadows with different objects to help us understand how light falls on objects and what kind of shadows are created.

Above is the practice drawings I did of three different objects. I drew three of each object, each using different mediums (pencil, charcoal and Sumi ink). I felt like through this activity, I became more aware of the different values cast shadows can have and how even though through naked eye it can be hard to tell, the shadow will always be the darkest right under the object.

Above is a photo of the still life and next to it is a photo of my finished charcoal drawing. I found it difficult to keep the drawing purely black and white because it was difficult to allow myself to fully rely on pragnanz/closure to express depth in the drawing. I am quite satisfied with how the drawing turned out.

Moving on to digitally recreating the drawing, we began by digitally finding the horizon line and the two vanishing points and re-drawing all the straight edges and corners on photoshop by using the paintbrush tool. I was able to see where I made mistakes on my analog drawing and create a more proportionally accurate recreation of my piece. After re-creating the shapes on photoshop, I began filling in the colors of the shapes and filling the background. The last step was to add in the cast shadows using the gradient tool and the marquee tool.

The final step was adding textures onto the blocks. We each took 25 photos of textures we were drawn to and I chose 3 photographs of textures I liked and pasted them onto the cinder blocks using different blending modes. In the end, I really liked how my piece turned out and I was the most pleased with the digital rendition of the still life with the stone/metal pattern on the cinder block. I feel like it turned out looking the most realistic and aesthetically pleasing.

I struggled with creating cast shadows on photoshop at first but after playing around with it through this project, I am much more comfortable using the gradient tool to make realistic shadows. Overall, I am proud of what I was able to make, especially because I found this task very daunting at first.