Final Blog Post:
It was harder for me to work with charcoal because I had tried to create a spectrum of grays. I was often more intrigued by my photographs. When I took digital photographs I was not as aware of the value, however, after reflecting on the quality of the value of my digital photographs, I was more successful in the spectrum of grays in my photographs from the dark room. After observing that I needed to experiment more with the value of my photographs I had also tried to push myself to be more creative of the different places that I could place my object in. I think that after reflecting on the first digital photographs, I had a better sense of what I needed to capture in my photographs to show value. I definitely tried to play more with the lighting when taking pictures for the dark room. For instance, in my first three digital photographs, my object was clearly noticeable in the picture, however, I decided to take a slightly different approach because I wanted to be more innovative and be able to learn from my first photographs. In my next set of pictures I had tried to keep my object more hidden and even have certain natural trees or leaves covering most of the object so that it would show a bigger contrast in the value scale between a natural and artificial object.
During my first charcoal drawing, I found it difficult to highlight certain parts in the drawing with the eraser. I often started erasing but it would sometimes be a shade of gray that was lighter than what I wanted. It was definitely difficult for me to be able to control the gray scale during the first charcoal drawing. However, when I started working on the second charcoal drawing, I actually appreciated having a slightly different approach. I felt that I was able to control the value scale better during the second drawing. I also found it helpful that instead of applying charcoal to the whole drawing and then using an eraser to highlight the lighter parts, that sketching and then applying charcoal was easier for me. I realized that during the second drawing, I had tried to consider all of the places where my object was a lot darker in value and then a apply a heavy amount of charcoal. This process was unlike my first charcoal drawing because during that drawing, I had focused on simply trying to get the light value scale.
I think that both mediums allowed for "expression" but in slightly different ways. For instance, in the drawings, I was really able to hone in on observing the detailed difference in the value scale. However, in the photographs, I was able to be more innovative and adjust the lighting to have different effects on my pictures.
