Exploring New Mediums

Sprite Can: Oil Pastel 

Lollipop: Colored Pencil

Before beginning the Up Close and Personal Project, we explored several mediums: oil pastel, chalk pastel and colored pencil. The first mini project we did was the soda can using oil pastel. I am fond of working with oil pastel because the smooth lines it creates. My main struggle with oil pastels was pushing the lights and darks because I felt like all of the colors just ended up blending together. There is not great contrast because most of the blue values are  too similar. Overall, I was satisfied with my can because I think I did a commendable job at making it look realistic, but I did not love it. Going into the second project, I was hesitant about working with colored pencils. I never knew how much contrast one can create using this medium. The opportunity to use Prismacolors for the first time was very exciting because  I liked being able to blend the colors and make the whites stand out. I think my lollipop was the most successful out of the three projects because I created a shadow, highlighted the lights, and it looks like a real lollipop. The final project was a candy in a wrapper using chalk pastel. I like the way that the candy itself looks because of the smooth transitions between values of blue. Despite that, I struggled with my hand smudging the paper and it ended up looking messy. Also, I did not end up liking my choice of using light pink paper because the white of the wrapper was not able to stand out to create contrast. The candy in the wrapper was my least favorite project because I found chalk pastels difficult to work with. Although some like blending the colors with their fingers, I feel like it made my project look more messy. These projects helped to prepare me for the Up Close and Personal Project because I paid attention to small details. In addition to that, I plan on doing either bacon or sliced tomatoes, so I needed some practice with drawing foods. If I could add anything to these projects, I would draw deeper shadows. 

Candy in Wrapper: Chalk Pastel