Up Close and Personal

For the up close and personal project I decided to draw a lion with chalk pastel and some pencil. For the lion's face and the hair I used chalk pastel. For the eyes I used pencil, I just thought the eyes had to be more detailed and with the chalk pastel the eyes would have come out too messy, in my opinion. The more I worked with the chalk pastel the more I began to like it. I think it's such a nice way to blend the colors and and to layer the colors on top of each other. On the face I did more of blending with the chalk pastels and later on decided to add some of the texture that is the fur. On the mane, I didn't blend the colors as much because I thought the lines would give it more texture. I learned how to blend the different colors of chalk pastels and improved the skill even more. It was difficult to layer the colors because they usually didn't layer as I intended them to, but in the end they all worked nicely together. Before starting this project I was a bit hesitant. I thought it would be too complicated to draw the lion and incorporate the many textures, but I decided on the lion despite that because I had always wanted to draw a lion. Once I started the project and started drawing the mane I stepped back and really liked how it was turning out. I didn't know I was capable of adding the texture and the many colors but in the end I really liked it. Before I started I already had in mind that I would blend the colors in the face and the colors in the hair. As I started drawing it I decided that the blending didn't show much on the brown paper so decided to make the colors bold so they would stand out. I used different colors that don't usually stand out on a lion's mane because I thought it would make it stand out. I used pinks, bright orange, and neon yellow to make the mane bright and shiny. Throughout my whole work I asked students from my table what colors would look better and the different techniques. This really helped me because it opened my mind to different techniques and different ways my lion could look good. I learned important skills on the way to handle chalk pastels from the students surrounding me. Either in the blending or the way to go about layering the colors. In the end, I was very proud of my project and surprised on what I could accomplish with my skill.