For my alterations, I decided to add more value in certain areas, and fill in the white areas with lighter shades of grey to mimic the light grey wall that the still life was propped up against. I continued to use ink to fill in some of the shadows, such as underneath the jar and around the nail polish bottle, as well as under the box. I also decided to incorporate other mediums to create more textures as well as a more diverse scale of value. During the critique, I observed one of my peer’s pieces and he had decided to lighten up the atmosphere within his drawing by creating a wash with ink and water. This inspired me to try to achieve lighter tones instead of simply playing with the contrast made with just the black of the ink and the white of the paper. I felt that imitating the wash on my drawing wouldn’t quite fit the general aesthetic I had already established, so instead I decided to use charcoal as a way of completing the vibe of this gradient and found it to be successful. It was interesting to see the effect of combining the solid lines of the ink with a rougher medium like charcoal and I think it blended nicely and put more feeling behind the piece overall. Another medium I decided to use was my graphite sticks to fill in the background. I found some difficulty with this due to my previous decision to use white paint to cover up a mistake, but I do think this was successful as the texture created by the sticks effectively encapsulated the texture of the wall. The soft color also helped balance the drawing in a way that it brought everything together and surrounded the objects in the foreground pleasantly.
Thanks for your reflection Sophie! I think you make some great points here and it sounds like the critique was helpful for you! I want to push back on something: I think you can re-frame your understanding of your “mistake” with the background into something more positive! Your solution was to layer white paint over the top of the page where it was too dark… but this immediately made it into a mixed media work! You then added charcoal and graphite in additional layers! I think this is a great discovery. I wonder if you would have had that impulse had you not made that “mistake” in the first place. I agree that you can think about expanding your range of value, but it sounds like you found a creative solution in the meantime!