Sketchbook Assignment (Acrobatic)

Acrobatic

The piece I did for this month was based on the theme Acrobatic. I named it “Steps with Balance” because, in the picture every step the girl takes, she has to be careful or else she will fall. The girl is holding an umbrella to help her stay balanced. I decided to make her wear a dress with many bows because it fits the theme of a circus.

In My piece I used pencil and pencil crayons. I started out with a pencil drawing of what I wanted and then colored it over with the colors I wanted. To make it look like a spotlight was shining at her, I used pencil and smudged it around the ray of the light so that it would be darker around the outside of where the light was shining. I also made a shadow of the girl to help create the spotlight affect. For this assignment I decided to use colors instead of only black and white because, when I thought of acrobatic it reminded me of a circus and circuses are usually colorful. 

I had other ideas before I decided to do a girl walking on a tightrope. I thought of drawing dolphins jumping in the air, a trapeze act, or a pyramid of circus performers. I decided to do the tightrope walker out of the rest of the ideas because, at the time when I was picturing the ideas in my head, the tightrope walker idea seemed the best.
               

I had some difficulties while drawing this piece. It was hard to think of a way to get the spotlight affect. I tried many different tactics but most of them failed. I ended up thinking of using pencil smudging to create the outline of the light. I also had difficulties getting a proper shadow of the girl. I had an idea of tracing the drawing of the girl and cutting it out then, outlining the cut out on the spot where I wanted the shadow to be. It worked.  

If I were to do anything different I would have drawn the umbrella closer to her so that I could have drawn the shadow of the umbrella within the spotlight. I would have also colored darker so that it would stand out more and so that it would be darker in the areas where the light isn’t shining. 

This piece took a lot of effort to do and I really liked how it looked when I was finished.