Shoe Drawing

 Like previous years, we started off the year with a still life drawing. This year we decided to draw shoes, because unlike the years before they don't ripen or begin to rot, so we had a while to work on them. At my table I found this lovely moccasin laying there and it was mainly the laces that inspired me to make my focus point only on this one shoe. I loved the way the laces contoured around the shoe and the shadows and texture of the shoe itself. I thought about adding more shoes like everyone else, but I decided to blow this one shoe up to take over the page of my paper. It was somewhat of a challenge for me to take the real size of the shoe and enlarge it. Usually I like to draw to size, but it was a risk I felt I could manage.

The whole drawing process was fun. I liked being able to focus on just one thing but because I was focusing on one shoe I was able to spend more time adding more details to it. I worked on the laces first and then began the base of the shoe. What I like about drawing is I can jump around on the page if I get bored or uninspired in the spot I'm currently working on. The sketching process went well and I felt like I really developed my drawing.

I added color to my shoe, one of few people who added color to their sketches, because I thought color was mandatory to add. It wasn't. But thinking it was pushed me out of my comfort zone because I usually hate adding color. I prefer drawing in black and white because it usually looks neater and messing up can be easily covered. While using colored pencil I was fearful of undoing all my hard work of my drawing, but eventually I got over that fear and just went for it. I chose colors that went along with the colors in the background; navy blue, red, orange, yellow. I wanted to try and stay away from colors like black and white and simply manipulate the other colors to look the same, but in certain areas you can tell I gave in and did the shadows in black and highlights in white. It was worth a shot at least. I think the coloring came out really well, to my surprise. I had difficulty in certain areas due to the weirdness of the shoe but after understanding what I was really seeing it was easier to shade in the shadows to make the drawing 'pop'. I really like the out come of my shoe drawing because it's different; many of my drawings are in black and white pencil, so having this in color makes it really stand out.