Since I started doing traditional art again, I’ve been wanting to make bigger and bigger pieces. When I first began working with pencils my freshman year, I was drawing on sticky notes and in a 3 x 5” sketchbook. Then going from 5.5 x 8.5” to 11 x 12”, 22 x 30” and now I’m working with ~54 x 42”, give or take a few inches. I probably messed up measuring. 

The absolute hardest part of wanting to draw bigger and bigger and bigger you ask? Besides accurately measuring paper bigger than any rulers I can find? The price. When I did digital art, most things were a one time purchase. I got a drawing tablet for christmas, (okay, so, maybe got a bit addicted to buying and trying different tablet brands and bought a few too many) paid a one time fee Clip Studio Paint Ex subscription, got a packet of extra pen nibs, and that was pretty much it. I wasn’t constantly buying paper or pencils or brushes or anything else. Digital art is pretty cheap compared to other mediums. When I wanted to start a new drawing all I needed was the device storage. But with my change to traditional art, I don’t think I’ve gone a single month without spending money at an art store. I’m burning through 6B, 9B, and 10B pencils like I have the money to do so; I really need to stop making huge portions of my drawings all black. 

Thankfully, I had bought 22 x 30” paper for a class last semester and didn’t end up using any of it, so I had been good on that front all summer. Until last week at least, when I went to grab another sheet for a new drawing and found my cat eating away at the corners of my last piece of paper. Maybe not so thankfully this was just the excuse I needed to buy bigger paper. I mean, I couldn’t use the paper my cat had eaten, even if it was only the corners. 

My local art store doesn’t have anything above 22 x 30” unfortunately, so I went searching online for something bigger. Remember a few paragraphs ago when I said the worst thing about wanting to draw bigger was the price? Yeah me neither. So, as I scoured the internet for paper I came across a few sites selling anywhere from 40 x 60” to 52 x 70” sheets of paper for $200-400. I may not make entirely wise financial decisions when it comes to art supplies but even I know that’s way above my means for paper. 

Google, seemingly understanding my financial dilemma, kindly proceeded to flood my browser with ads for rolls of drawing paper. Minus $20 and plus 10 yards of paper later, I had overcome the worst part of drawing big. 

Now on to the second worst part- turns out big paper is kind of, you know, big and difficult to find space for.

I don’t think I fully understood how big 10 yards was when I bought it, or how small my dining room slash makeshift art studio is in comparison. I really wasn’t sure how to draw on or cut this paper, for my 22 x 30” drawings I had just taped it to a large piece of cardboard and called it a day. But for these I had to drag a spider infested step stool into my room and tape this paper to my wall to actually draw anything while simultaneously debating buying a $200 drafting table in the middle of that. It seems my fate might be doomed to spend $200 no matter what this summer. But after several trials and errors I eventually got the paper somewhat, mostly, kind of, straight on my wall.  

Originally I had the paper horizontally and had drawn three figures spanning across the page. It took me a full day to set everything up and sketch out the concept and by the end of it- I hated it. The composition was awkward at best and almost non-existent at worst. Just looking at this sketch was giving me an art block. I almost never abandon my pieces or start things over, I’m usually pretty happy with my initial sketches and anything I don’t like is pretty minor and can be changed easily. But I didn’t like a single thing about this drawing, it was just bad. I had gotten too excited about the size of the paper (a phrase I never thought I’d say, wow) and hadn’t used any of the space properly or with thought. 

So, I flipped it around and made it vertical. Then I sat down and actually thought about what I wanted to draw. 

The past few months I’ve been extremely interested in drawing chairs. I don’t know why the sudden interest in chairs of all things occurred, but I think my best pieces have come out of this newfound muse. There are so many interesting compositions you can make with a chair, it’s almost endless. I knew for this drawing I wanted to do something more, and a lot more surreal, so I “upgraded” the chair for the spider infested step stool. I wanted to draw something more climbable, and the second that idea came into my head I knew what I was going to draw. 

I had also bought these giant googly eyes at an art store and wanted to do something with them and thought it could be a nice challenge to add them in somehow. I think I made a pretty decent S-shaped composition when all was said and done. At the very least it was a lot better than my initial plan. 

Now I just have to hope I can finish this before moving back into the dorms. I have no idea how I would even begin to transport this if I don’t and I really don’t want to find out.