For this project, it was definitely not hard to brainstorm my ideas. I have an entire photo album in my camera dedicated to all of my pictures of my cats and dogs and fish, so finding the right idea for the project was only challenging because I had too many to narrow down to just one. I eventually chose the photo above to be my project because I loved how up close and personal the photo was, and how his tongue was sticking out in the picture. I thought this was a great idea because it showed some character and softness about my cat rather than showing a stereotypical photo of a grouchy kitty.
During the process of making this project, I surprisingly found that creating the textures in the fur was extremely easy. I thought that by starting with something dark and focusing on the highlights instead of trying to focus on shadows first was hard for me and a bit of backwards thinking, but surprisingly, I found it fairly easy to switch to that mindset early on in the project. However, I did struggle figuring out how to create the textures for the purse Napoleon is laying against and how to display the cabinets in the background in a way that would show contrast. I decided to really scratch off a ton of the ink to make a strong contrast between my cat and the background, and used random shapes in the purse to add contrast within the foreground of the picture as well. From the start though, I focused on his face and the details first, then as i went on i tried to do the lightest parts of his body and really nail them to make sure that i had the ability to create different levels of value in places that he has stripes. Once I finished the main focus, I then worked on adding contrast to the background and my cute kitten to make sure he stood out.
With this being my first time using the scratchboard, I believe it was very successful. The process had a tendency to be tedious and repetitive, but enjoyable and relaxing for me. I definitely would like to use scratchboard again and create new projects and maybe even branch out to different styles of art similar to scratchboard on my own. This medium has also allowed me to learn that maybe painting isn't my favorite thing anymore because once I finished this project, I just wanted to do another project with the same medium.
During the process of making this project, I surprisingly found that creating the textures in the fur was extremely easy. I thought that by starting with something dark and focusing on the highlights instead of trying to focus on shadows first was hard for me and a bit of backwards thinking, but surprisingly, I found it fairly easy to switch to that mindset early on in the project. However, I did struggle figuring out how to create the textures for the purse Napoleon is laying against and how to display the cabinets in the background in a way that would show contrast. I decided to really scratch off a ton of the ink to make a strong contrast between my cat and the background, and used random shapes in the purse to add contrast within the foreground of the picture as well. From the start though, I focused on his face and the details first, then as i went on i tried to do the lightest parts of his body and really nail them to make sure that i had the ability to create different levels of value in places that he has stripes. Once I finished the main focus, I then worked on adding contrast to the background and my cute kitten to make sure he stood out.
With this being my first time using the scratchboard, I believe it was very successful. The process had a tendency to be tedious and repetitive, but enjoyable and relaxing for me. I definitely would like to use scratchboard again and create new projects and maybe even branch out to different styles of art similar to scratchboard on my own. This medium has also allowed me to learn that maybe painting isn't my favorite thing anymore because once I finished this project, I just wanted to do another project with the same medium.