The prompt for our final project was to create an image of our “alter ego” with any medium we’d used in class. I choose to do a full tonal drawing, as this was a medium I had only explored once before and because I had a lot of fun doing it. Furthermore, I wanted to work with black and white (really thinking about light in the image). The conceptual idea for this project is based off a common joke I have with my friends, where my alter ego//my Id (like a Freud Id) is a very dark impulsive creature. I decided this was the perfect time to explore my Id and superego in a more artist way.
I began mapping out what I wanted the final piece to look like. I wanted my portrait to be resembling what I look like, but in a slightly more dark and somber way. In Freud’s model of the psyche the super ego manages the id, so I decided to represent the Id as an image of my dark self, and the super ego as a god-like hand attempting to scold it. If my normal ego is represented by the ego in Freud’s model, together my id and superego form an “alter ego” of sorts.
After decided what the piece would look like I mapped it out on photoshop. I went back and fourth on the scale of the hands relative to the face, attempting to create a balanced composition. Since the image is much darker at the bottom I decided to make the hand at the top larger. The image feels balanced this way. Upon decided what the composition would be, I printed out the image and began drawing.
Due to the wide tonal range and to create a sense of depth, I decided to use pencils 9B, 4B, HB and a .5mm mechanical pencil that’s 2H for details. I also ended up adding more shadow in the background and centering the light more to the middle of the page.
Since the drawing is so small I scanned it and printed it on a 22×30 matte paper. Bellow is the final piece.
