Charcoal Skull: Final Project and Artist Statement

Artist statement:
My goals and intentions with this piece were to carve out the light and dark shadows. I accomplished this by looking at the shadows as shapes. My painting's main focus is the large gaping eye hole and also the texture and color differences in the skull vs the pumpkin. The most difficult challenge I had to face was doing the teeth and looking at them as individual shapes that are all different. I met the challenge by using a piece of looseleaf paper and seeing how the teeth do not form a perfect straight line. I think my painting uses negative space to its advantage and it looks like the skull and pumpkin morph into the darkness. I learned how to look as the anatomy of a skull and forget what I am drawing and I think this will help me when we eventually begin to do faces. We learned from Jamie Wyeth and his pumpkin paintings and especially the way he used light. I liked Zoe's work because she had so much contrast in it. If I had a do-over, I would spend more time focusing on the pumpkin. I really liked my skull and I was proud of it but I wish I could just cut out the pumpkin and have the main focus be the skull.