Vector Tracing

First Drawing: free hand trace of a tuba

Second Drawing: trace of a tuba

Third Drawing: trace of a tuba with color

Written explanation

a) Elements and Principles of Design:

     All the three drawings that I did have line and shape. There is straight and curve lines most of the time. The shape is really well seen in all three drawings because of the forms they show with curve lines. There is no texture in my drawings. There is black colour in my third drawing. There is a lot of negative space in my first and second drawings. There is not positive space in these ones. However, in my third drawing there is positive space most of the time and few negative space. There is no balance between the two spaces. I also can see contrast in this third drawing because of the black and white colours. There is emphasis too. All the drawings have unity,the lines join together and form one object. There is not variety. Also I can't see rhythm in my drawings. There is no value.

b) Technical:

     In the first drawing I did a free hand sketch of a tuba. But before I sketched it in a paper with a special pencil called "canté". Then I scanned it and on the computer with the program Adobe Illustrator, I started the trace of it. I used the Pen Tool. Also, I created a layer for each part of the trace of the tuba. I created 4 new layers. When I finished the trace of my free hand sketch, I exported my drawing as a PNG file.

     In the second drawing I did a trace of a tuba. I started to create a new layer and lock the original layer of the image. Then, with the Pen Tool I traced all the curves, lines and small details. This process made me create 5 new layers. This way, if I had done something wrong, I could delete it and the other layers would stay in the same place. Tracing this image was the most difficult part because it had lots of details to trace. When I finished my tracing of the tuba, I exported the drawing as a PNG file.

     In the third drawing, I opened the second drawing on the computer and started to put colour in the instrument. Like in the last drawings, I locked the original layer and created another one. Then with the Pen Tool and black colour I just had to fill the white space inside the tuba. To do this I created 14 more layers. At the end, my drawing looked like a shade. I also exported it as a PNG file.

c) My opinion:

     The drawing I like best is the second one, because it took me a long time to get done and was really hard and confused to do. However, the final product was really nice and well done. I prefer this one to the others because the design is unique and has a lot of details. Also, this second drawing is the one that "works" as a good design because of its shape, line and volume. However, the one that isn't as effective is the first one because it looks like a rough copy.