Media Experimentation: Part 1

I thought it would be interesting to draw or paint different objects or textures with various media. This way not only can I get more practice with media I wouldn't normally use, but it can also be a way to compare the effects of different media and learn which may work best for a particular artwork.

For this first part, I wanted to focus on creating the look of glass. I chose a small glass bottle because I liked the shape, and the glass has a blue-green tint to it. I decided to draw it three times: once in graphite, once in colored pencils, and once in watercolors.

I started with the graphite version. First, I sketched out the bottle, making sure to indicate highlights and shadows, and then I went ahead and shaded in the cork before focusing on the glass.

Next, I filled in the dark areas of the glass, leaving the highlights for last.

Finally, I lightly shaded in some of the highlights and added in some of the background.

For the colored pencil version, I again started with a light sketch.

Next, I colored in the cork with some yellows and browns. I added some darker spots of brown for the specks on the cork. Then I used blue and green for the colored bits of the glass, and some black for the darker lines.

To achieve the speckled area of light on the top left of the bottle, I used a method of indenting the paper with the tip of an empty mechanical pencil to create grooves. Then when I went over this area, both for the graphite and colored pencil versions, the black didn't go into the grooves and it left white spots.

Finally, I worked on the watercolor version of this bottle. I sketched it out as usual, and then I began painting in the blue-green areas, fading some areas to white.

Next, I painted the cork with some yellow, orange, and brown, using brown and black for the darker specks and shadows. For the rim of the bottle, I used some blue-green lines, some yellow, orange, and brown lines, and some gray or black lines.

Lastly, I filled in the rest of the bottle with black, making sure to leave the highlights white. Since I couldn't use the indentation method with the watercolors, I first dry-brushed some black onto the speckled area. Then I went over this with some black dots to achieve the right look, and painted in the background.

Overall, I think all three media worked well for this glass bottle. The contrast of highlights and shadows and the focus on lighting created a neat effect with the graphite version. The colored pencils added that interesting tint of blue-green that the bottle had and kept the high contrast of darks and lights. While the black in the watercolor version was paler and had a slight blue tint, I really loved the translucent effect that the watercolors gave, as it fits the look of glass very well.

This was really neat to see the different effects that each media can bring to a piece of art, and I'm excited to try it out with some different objects and textures!