Ashlyn Bryant
Drawing and Composition
Professor Emerson
12/16/2024
Self Evaluation
Ashlyn Bryant, Peacock, 2024
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
To be completely honest I really didn’t know what I was going to do for the final project of this class. I went through a few ideas before landing on the peacock. A halloween-themed character, wolf with feathers, lion with an angry cartoon expression, and a person facing a sunset. Once I figured out that I wanted to do the peacock, I already knew that I wanted it to have a cool color scheme. As shades of blue and green are usually the colors that come to mind when thinking of peacocks. While I was working on this project, I remembered that I had made something similar to this in my first year of high school for my art class. That piece had a silhouette of a peacock with a purple outline with yellow eyes, red background, and only a small portion of a tail could be seen. For this final project, there was a lot of last minute decision making especially with the wing and the background. Originally the wing was supposed to resemble the head and wasn’t supposed to take up that much space but there was too much negative space. Also I figured that having the whole wing being dark blue would’ve been boring. Resulting in me making part of the wing a different shade of blue as well as adding a pattern. Although I was a bit disappointed that one couldn’t see the pattern from a distance. For the background at first I wanted to add blue tissue paper, unfortunately there wasn’t any blue tissue paper. So, I went with the blue paint instead. While making this project, I learned that markers are probably not the best things to use as they tend not to last long. The materials that I used were a black sharpie, green pastels, blue paint, and blue paint as previously stated.
Ashlyn Bryant
Advanced Drawing
Professor Emerson
09/22/2025
Portfolio 1
Ashlyn Bryant, Rhino Figurine Series, 2025
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
At first I did not know what I wanted to do for the first project of the semester so Professor Emerson had suggested that I should make multiple drawings of the same subject but making sure that each were different. After receiving help I decided to do a direct observation of a small rhino statue sitting on my desk with different objects in the background. I did six drawings in total, all of them being different while using various types of paper. The first one that I did is the one above the brown crumpled paper drawing. That one I used paper from my drawing journal and I only used a regular pencil and the blue one from the supply list. Everything aside from the white wall in the background and the six triangles within the circle on the rhino is a shade of gray. Unlike the other drawings there is a shadow present. The second that I did was the brown crumpled paper one beneath the first that I did. I crumpled that paper in order to add the cracks that the statue had without actually having to draw said cracks. For this one I started with a pencil then went over it with a pen and used the vine charcoal for the desk part. Drawing number three is the one next to the brown crumpled paper one. The paper I used for the third was from the journal that I used from my painting class I took last year. This is the only one where the cracks on the statue are not visible within the drawing itself. I used a black colored pencil and pen when coloring the rhino that is presented at an angle unlike the first two drawings. For the background, I used a little bit of vine charcoal. Drawing number four is the one where I used a black piece of paper and used white charcoal for both the drawing and coloring process. In contrast to the other three drawings I added some objects in the background. In the background is a triangular pyramid that is actually black in real life and the other object that I added was some kind of ceramic that was painted bright red. To be completely honest I am not entirely sure of what it was. The fourth drawing is the biggest one of the six which was done on tracing paper. In this drawing, the rhino is facing forward and I used both a regular pencil and the blue pencil once again to make it. I added some color to the wall in this drawing unlike the other ones where the wall is present. Black vine charcoal was used for coloring the desk and white charcoal was used for coloring the objects in the background. Much like the previous drawing I have absolutely no idea what those objects were supposed to be or what they are called. The final drawing that I did for this project is the one in the corner with the two rocks and a part of a branch. I used both pencils for the rhino statue and the black vine charcoal for the desk once again. As well as leaving the wall completely blank and the type of paper that I used was thinner than other white pieces of paper that I had already used. However, unlike the other two previous drawings where I added objects this one has three instead of two. Also two of the three are in front of the rhino rather than behind it like the slightly bigger rock is. For the wood piece, I used a pencil and a dark brown colored pencil and for the rocks I used rusty brown and orange colored pencils. Looking at the finished product I noticed that the majority of the drawings have a neutral color palette with the last drawing being the only one having an unneutral color. The rocks, the bigger one being behind the rhino and the smaller being in front of the wood piece, are an orange-brown color. For me, the goal of this project was to try out different approaches and techniques.This project was the first time that I drew the same thing in different ways, using various types of paper, and drawing with a white charcoal pencil. To which was the goal of this project for me to try out new materials and techniques. Overall, I liked how everything had turned out in the end. Personally, I like the first and fourth drawings the best out of the six. But if I had to do it all over again I would try to make a better attempt at drawing the statue at different angles.