Created for GBC Art and Design
Pencil Crayon on Canson Paper
October 2019
ROM Poster
Introduction
This is a project that I completed for my Art Culture class at George Brown College. As a group we went to the Royal Ontario Museum. There, we looked at different ancient pieces of art from around the world. We were required to choose one and create a hand-drawn pencil crayon poster that would effectively advertise the exhibit and portray the ancient culture.
Materials
- DSLR camera
- Graphite pencils (2H, 8B, 5H)
- Thumbnail template
- iPad with Procreate app
- Apple pencil
- Printer
- 8.5x11 printer paper
- 9x12 tracing paper
- 9x12 Canson pastel paper
- Prismacolor Pencil crayons
- Black technical pens (0.5mm, 0.1mm, 0.05mm)
Creative Process
I knew that when I was at the ROM I wanted to focus on an ancient Asian culture, such as China or Japan. The artifacts in these exhibits are visually striking and I thought they would translate well in a poster. I took many photos of many different art pieces and created thumbnails based on them. I used the template given to us in class and explored different compositions, placing the title in different places on the page.
Thumbnail sketches done with a 2H pencil exploring different artifacts and compositions.
Of my different ideas, I selected the design of a Chinese glazed ceramic luohan statue from the 11th century. I was attracted to the figure's expression and its bright, shiny surface. I thought that this would be a fun challenge to try to render in pencil crayon. I also chose to draw inspiration from an ink painting of bamboo. I thought that the imagery of bamboo was very iconic to China and that I could create a background to complement the drawing of the statue. I had taken the following photos on my DSLR camera to use as references for my poster.
Next I developed my thumbnail into a digital mock-up using Procreate on my iPad. I imported the actual photos of the statue and the painting to get an idea of how the patterns would look together. I chose a pale green background to go with the bold green of the statue's robes. I added the title and subtitle with a white glow behind them to make them stand out against the statue. I chose a font that would be classic and easy to read but with a touch of flare in the thickness of the stroke. Finally, I added the ROM logo to the bottom corner.
Digital mock-up of design done on Procreate.
Workflow
It was time to start creating the final poster. I printed out my mock-up onto standard 8.5x11 printer paper. I then placed it underneath a sheet of 9x12 tracing paper and traced the design with a 2H pencil. I outlined areas of highlight so I would know which areas to keep light when rendering the final image. I created a stencil out of this tracing by filling in the back of the paper with an 8B pencil. Later in my workflow I would use this to transfer the design to my final poster on Canson pastel paper.
Once I had my finished design, it was time to explore colour with my pencil crayons. Because I only have 24 pencil crayons, I needed to layer them in order to figure out the exact tones I wanted to use. I printed out a colour palette template and transferred it to my pale green Canson pastel paper using the same method as above. I then chose pencil crayons that I thought represented the colours in my photos best and began layering the colours on top of each other. I would later use this palette as a guide to choosing my colours in my final piece.
Labelled colour palette with pencil crayons used.
It was time to start my final piece. I transferred the outline of my design to my 9x12 pastel paper by tracing overtop of the lines with a 5H pencil. I first outlined the title, subtitle, and ROM logo with a combination of 0.5, 0.1, and 0.05 black tech pens I used the smaller nibs for the outline of the letters to keep the corners sharp and I filled them in with the bigger nib. I outlined the letters with white pencil crayon, then faded out the white to create a glow.
Close-up of glowing lettering created with tech pens and white pencil crayon.
I then began to slowly and lightly lay down colours with my pencil crayons, starting with areas of high saturation and deep tones/shadows. I also laid down the bright white highlights so I would know to not touch those areas with colour. I worked to the lighter tones, blending the colours as I went. I consistently referred back to my photographs as I was drawing to achieve the highest level of realism I could.
A late, night-before Instagram story showing an early stage of drawing while also expressing a minor amount of frustration with lack of time-management skills.
Another Instagram story from a few hours later showing slow but steady progress.
I finished off my drawing by completing the painted bamboo shoots in the background. I found this part challenging, as I was using pencil crayon to express a completely different medium. I used varying tones of black and grey to try to achieve a sense of opacity, as the original painting had.
Close-up of bamboo created with grey and black pencil crayons. I enjoy how expressive the lines are here.
Final Piece
Conclusions
I'm extremely proud of how this piece turned out! Pencil crayon drawing was extremely time consuming for me, but I think I was able to achieve a very realistic piece that definitely conveyed the beauty of the China exhibit at the ROM. I love how shiny the surface of the statue looks and how vibrant his robes are. My teacher seemed to agree; I got 100% on this assignment! Definitely worth the hours I put into it.
