I Took Risks
For this project, I wanted to challenge myself and take a risk by using media that I've never used before--charcoal. I'd never really experimented with charcoal before, I was always afraid of being messy and getting my hands dirty, but I thought if there was ever a time to try something new, it was now. I also wasn't sure what the final artwork would look like when I was finished, it was one of those things where I had a general idea of what I was doing, but I mostly made it up as I went along in terms of composition, shading, and the amount of detail. I was worried that I would completely mess up on the shading and the piano wouldn't look realistic; that did happen once, and I had to start over. However, I was pretty satisfied with how my final piece turned out, even though it was nothing like I had expected it to be.
I'd originally planned on doing three drawings and making a border around them, as shown in my sketches.
Here are some more sketches I made before I began. At this point, I still wasn't sure about my composition, and I was definitely challenging myself by using charcoal which was an unfamiliar medium to me.
This is the final artwork. As I said, I was pretty satisfied, although I know I can do better next time now that I'm used to charcoal. I found that layering and blending was the most effective way to get the shading that I wanted.
Just for funsies, I made a short video with all the progress pictures I took :)