For this blog post, I would like to discuss the portrait I made for my inspiration: Ariana Grande. To begin, I want to get the basic facts of this portrait out of the way so I can move into the deeper more hidden techniques I used to make this piece.
Firstly, the pose Ariana’s hitting is seen in a female interlude she did for international woman’s day. When watching this video, which I have linked here for your viewing pleasure, I felt inspired to draw her immediately after witnessing how strong she looked and seeing the repetitive phrase pop up, “not asking for it.” This phrase means a lot to women who go against rape culture, meaning going against the stigma around sexual assault victims “asking for it” by wearing a revealing outfit. I felt a strong connection to the video and it’s message, so I took out my Remarkable and began sketching the outline.
Compared to a lot of drawings I’ve done in the past, you’ll be seeing a lot of different styles from me in every post, this drawing I made in particular came out a lot more realistic and rough. Instead of using a the fine liner tool to trace over my initial sketch, I decided to layer the lighter pencil lines with darker pencil strokes. I decided not to blend some of the shading to purposefully leave rough patches on her face and body. I liked how the rugged edges looked in correlation to the meaning behind this video. Ariana looked rough and tough in the interlude, therefore I wanted my portrait to exemplify the same tone.
I hope you’ve enjoyed viewing this drawing and I’d love to hear your responses and feedback based on what you saw and felt while looking at this portrait. I feel a sense of strength and feminine power, however another viewer might feel a different emotion. All thoughts and inquires may be sent to me via direct message on Twitter, here. Please come back for more regular content!
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