Music Shield

    Using just charcoal and graphite i drew one side of the guitar across the page. I focused on the main body of the guitar as when held it covers the majority of the stomach like armour. With the charcoal i just did a mix of squiggles and spirals, using a cotton ball to smudge it out. When doing this on the outside area of the guitar i wiped the cotton ball in straight lines. I like the change in shades when i did this as all the lines individually all reach out to a different length. To me this shadow of blackness represents all the bad thoughts or bad happenings. As they reach the guitar they stop as if a shield is protecting the person. Music has always been used to bring people together and share emotions, or can just be personal to the guitar player as they use their music to express their experiences, reaching out to others, and therefore aiding themselves. The guitar was also smudged and grey as music can be used to spread messages to bring awareness to certain issues, making some music quite dark as it can cause the listener to feel the bad emotions again. I used the graphite to add little lines of detail to the guitar like the edges, so it appeared sharp and strong. The edges are very roughly drawn so the guitar looks jagged and brutal like collapsed brick wall. However on other details like the strings of the guitar were kept faint as to not distract the eye from the front of the shield. To improve this i would want to add more detail using shading pencils and white chalk/rubber to create shadows and make the entire piece darker to really emphasise the power music has over the soul and how certain songs reach into it to bring light to the darker areas of our emotions.