What is your assignment/project?  What are your goals?  How are you going to succeed? 
   
              In this assignment I am supposed to create an “anti self-portrait” in which I need to create a portrait of myself using everyday objects. The idea is to use objects that represent characteristics of me, such as perhaps a soccer ball if you play soccer or a pencil if you’re a writer or such, and lay them out on a table, essentially creating a character map of yourself. I decided to pick a sounders scarf, since I really enjoy both playing and watching soccer, and since the sounders are my favorite MLS team. I will draw a camera, since I enjoy both photography and filming and creating videos as well. I will draw a race number as well, since I really enjoy doing track, especially throwing javelin, and that can represent that sport. And finally, I will draw a paintbrush, to represent art, which I greatly enjoy creating and it has a large influence on my life. I plan to do several drafts, the first of which just laying out the basic positions, and the second and third focusing more on the objects themselves, getting them to look exactly right and figuring out proportions and everything in order to get it looking as realistic as possible.

First Drafts – How did you come up with this sketch?  What were you trying to accomplish?  How do you plan to improve upon this? 


              This is my first rough sketch. I did everything very, very basic, just trying to lay out the basic positions for every piece. I intended to just figure out where everything would fit on the page, not to get anything down in detail. The proportion in this first drafts are a little off; the camera being too large and the race number a little large. All the lines are really rough, and all the objects are drawn pretty simply to just try and get all my ideas on paper basically. I also toyed with the idea of adding glacier glasses to the drawing to represent the mountaineering that I do, but I tossed the idea after finding that they didn’t fit very well in the image, and that they made it a little cluttered. I didn’t really like the way they looked, so I decided not to add them in later drafts. I did this draft basically to just lay everything out, not for detail. I later drafts I planned to do everything in much greater detail, so I could practice actually drawing them properly and realistically, and in the next ones I planned to also nail down the proportions, getting everything looking right, since in the first one they are slightly off.

Second and Third Drafts – How did you arrive here from your initial sketch?  How is this design better, more successful?  How can you improve upon this?  
             
               In the next draft, I did a much more detailed sketch. Unlike the first draft, which was really rough and just positioned everything, this drawing was a much more finished product. All the objects are tightened up, and look much more realistic in this one. I attempted to really get the camera done well in this one, and to get it in proportion this time. All the pieces are actually in proportion in this one, and actually look right in relation to each other. All of them are shaded much better too. I attempted to get some of the shadows and highlights on the objects in this one as a basis for the final. Everything is just a lot cleaner and more finished in this draft, making a big improvement from the previous draft. In addition to doing a better overall picture, I did a larger, much more detailed picture of the camera, since that was one of the more difficult objects to draw. I looked only at the camera in this one, and tried to sketch it as accurately as possible so that I would have the practice with it for the final. I tried to really get all details of the camera perfect, getting the shape down, focusing on the lens and the text on the body of the camera.  This really helped me prepare for the final, where I could put that perfected image into a smaller scale next to the other objects. 

Final Draft – How does this final accomplish the goals given in the assignment/project?  How do you know this is a successful design? 

               My final drawing was a successful anti self-portrait. It shows the objects laid out on a plain surface the way it is supposed to, and each of those objects represents a part of my character, and it overall is a pretty accurate representation of me. Each object reflects one of the facets of my personality and character, and overall I think it represents well. The objects are drawn realistically, and in proportion to each other, creating a nice final product that is an accurate representation of the subjects. Each object is drawn well, and actually looks like the original subject. The scarf is properly proportional, and the logo is drawn accurately to the original. The camera is drawn very accurately, each detailed portion of it matching the original, all the way down to the text on front. The race number looks much like the original, text and all. The paintbrush is properly proportioned and drawn to look like the original. Overall, this is a very accurate, detailed, and properly drown final that successfully represents the subjects, both the objects I drew, and me. I liked that the objects really represented who I am, and told a story about me, letting a viewer imagine who I am and what I’m like without actually having to see my face. Overall this was a really fun project that turned out pretty successfully.

What is your assignment/project?  What are your goals?  How are you going to succeed? 

              This assignment is to create a portrait of myself. The aim is to end up with an accurate, professional portrait that accurately portrays me. Additionally, the facial expression on this portion is intended to show a specific emotion that can be easily pointed out and recognized. I aim to make a self-portrait which is both realistic and accurate, with proper dimensions and scaling so that the face actually ends up looking like mine. I want this piece to look like me, to accurately represent the subject, which in this case is me.  I also aim to make my face have a happy, smiling, sort of playful expression. This emotion should be shown through the drawing, and should be easily picked out. I plan on doing several practice drafts to make sure I have a fairly good idea of the shape and form of my face, and also the feel that I must create with the facial expression. I am going to specifically practice drawing the mouth, in order to really capture the smile that will make the happiness within the portrait show. I also think that I should get the face in proper proportion so that the head does not look awkwardly large, or so that one feature doesn’t stick out more than another. By making the face in proportion, it will not only make the drawing more accurate, but will also help to display the emotion within my face. 

First Drafts – How did you come up with this sketch?  What were you trying to accomplish?  How do you plan to improve upon this? 

              This is my initial sketch which was my first draft. I decided that I would just go out and draw a practice as if it were a final, just to see where I was, and this was the result. I looked at a picture of myself, and drew what I saw, without laying out proportions or looking at the angle of my face. I drew this just to see what I could do without making everything completely perfect, as a sort of starting point to work from. That is why that the first draft didn’t really look like me. It is angled differently than the photograph was, and the facial expression is a little off. I attempted to show the emotion in my face with this drawing, and though it shows some emotion, the facial expression is not fully developed. I decided to use this as a good starting point to work out kinks from and further develop the drawing. That way, in the next drafts I could make the drawing more accurate, such as by looking more at the facial angle, and the distance between and the placement of facial features, so that the drawing would look more like me. This drawing was a helpful staring point, because it gave me a good idea of what to change and fix in future drawings, and gave me something to base changes on to the features for later drawings. 

Second and Third Drafts – How did you arrive here from your initial sketch?  How is this design better, more successful?  How can you improve upon this?  

              My second and third drafts were far more rough than my first, and were intended to simply figure out what the correct facial structure was. In these drawings I tweaked the size and shape of the face, the placement of the mouth and nose, the size and angle of the eyes, and numerous other features to attempt to get a more accurate representation. I also practiced drawing several individual smaller features like the mouth and nose to get them looking closer to how they would to represent the emotion in the drawing. I used the features ad scale of the original sketch to start out, but then changed things to get the drawing to look more like me and to look the way I wanted it to. Though these drawings were much more rough than the first draft, they were a lot closer to what I wanted the final to look like because they were more accurate. However, these drawing were still not perfect. There were still many improvements to be made before these drawings became a final. They still needed to be put into accurate proportion, fixing the size and placement of the facial features to get them correct. The emotional aspect wasn’t totally there either, and the moth and cheek structure needed to be altered to really capture that. The shading also needed to be added, so that the drawings wouldn’t look so flat. And of course the drawings would have to become much less rough, and much more solid, finished products. 

Final Draft – How does this final accomplish the goals given in the assignment/project?  How do you know this is a successful design? 

              The final piece is an accurate drawing of me, a self-portrait which closely resembles the subject, and displays an emotion in the facial expression. The face is drawn proportionally- it was measured carefully from a picture to make sure it was in proportion and evenly spaced, and all the facial features were carefully placed to make sure that the facial structure would be accurately represented. The face is drawn to look like mine, and is very similar to the original picture. The shading within the face, the highlights and contrasts in the face are drawn to look like the image I was using as reference, and the drawing is an overall fairly accurate depiction of me. The final actually looks like me, unlike the first drafts. Additionally, the face displays an emotion. The slightly turned down smile is one that I make often, and reflects happiness. The shading above the mouth around the cheeks accentuates this and makes the smile appear more realistic, and the angle of the eyebrows and eyes themselves suggest a happy, contented, slightly playful and almost mischievous facial expression, which reflects the personality I was trying to show in the original picture. Overall, this project would be a success, since it accurately depicts me, and it shows an emotion in the facial expression, as the project outlined.