a) This time second time around really improved my drawing. I didn't make any "big" changes, but with the help of good critique and persistence, I made a few "smaller" ones that really helped to bring out and present my drawing much better . The first significant thing that I changed was the contour of the entire drawing. I made the front and back edges straight instead of slanted and bolded the front one while making the back one prominent but also sort of fading it into the background to draw the viewers eye back. Next I darkened my shadows which helped with the light/dark contrast even more so than before. Then I sharpened the edges of most of the objects to help them really own their space in the drawing. I also Darkened the bottom of the smaller can and added shadow. Lastly, I made the bigger can's top more precise as to what it really looks like by drawing in the top. Overall I learned that despite what I may think, it is always better to go back and edit as little details can improve your drawing so much.
I didn't get to return to the darkroom a second time after my three first prints, therefore my analysis is in the original blog post.
b) The darkroom photos were much more comfortable for me to work on. Working in the darkroom is something that I really enjoy and I like to try to make the "perfect" photo. It is a fun process and that let me free up mentally to experiment. The drawing was less comfortable because I tend to be very critical and hard on myself. If I could feel the same "freeness" as I do with the darkroom, I could be much more comfortable.
I believe that the drawing process leaves more room for expression. In the darkroom, while you do have the opportunity to express yourself in your photo setup, that is really all the expression you get to put into it. When drawing you set up your still life creatively but you are also able to improvise to a certain extent and show how you personally see the still life. Ten people could take a picture of the same thing and when they develop their photos, they will almost all be the same except for a few differences in how light or dark the photo is. If those same ten people all drew a still life, they would wind up with ten completely different drawings.
When I return to the darkroom in the future I think that to keep experimenting I could work on different original lighting and enlarger lighting to create more variety and also to experiment with leaving my photos in certain tubs (developer, fixer etc..) longer. For my drawings in the future I could experiment with shading and darkening certain areas to make it "pop".
FIRST BLOG:
Developing a way in which to work on this drawing was interesting. The shading and value aspect of this assignment was my favorite. I found that once I had my boundaries and "rough draft" down I felt more free to explore with value. I though that using darker shading around the whole drawing helped guide the viewers eye. Creating my outline was much harder. I had a tough angle and struggled with getting things like, most notably, the paintbrush to look like they were going back in space. Once I had finished, I thought I had done a good job capturing the shadow, but one thing I could work on for next time would be making things "pop" a little more.
My darkroom creations worked very well. In the beginning my photo was a little out of focus but I patched that up with my next two. Experimenting with timing and lighting took a while each time to find the "perfect" combination but it turned out well. The one thing I had trouble with was how much time I would leave my photos in the developer, fixer etc... I was too anxious to finish up and that caused me to have a few mess ups. Looking back I think that next time I should look to really bring out one aspect of my composition.
(One of my compositions was a little ruined as someone put theirs on top of mine when it was still wet.)
First photo: two clicks from brightest, 14 seconds
Second photo: two clicks from brightest, 16 seconds
Third photo: two clicks from brightest, 10 seconds
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