What is my project? 

In-Depth is a project where we learn everything about a topic. Our aim is to become experts on it during a five-month period. Since I will be working on this project for that long, I wanted to choose a topic that is extremely interesting to me. Therefore, I have chosen to learn about digital art for In-Depth 2022! 

Why did I choose this topic? 

More specifically, I chose to learn how to draw good backgrounds. I have been doing digital art for quite some time now, and though I believe I have improved quite a bit at drawing characters, I am not yet satisfied with my ability to draw backgrounds. I know that improving my background-drawing skills will improve my art as a whole. 

I have a few goals for what I want to accomplish during this project. I want to learn at least five points on what makes a good background and become fluent with two or three brushes. By the end of In-Depth, I hope to be able to draw backgrounds not only as a filler, but as something that pulls the whole piece together. 

I also want to learn how to make backgrounds that can be drawn from different perspectives consistently. I like to animate, and I often must draw different shots with similar backgrounds. To show my learning of this, I plan to put my new background-drawing skills to use by using them in one animation. Since animating takes a lot of time, I may not be able to finish an entire animation, but I will at least draw three backgrounds for it. 

Here are a few examples of my current background drawings: 

And here is an example of a background I made using a tutorial: 

Obviously, this one is quite detailed, and I would not draw backgrounds like this for an animation because it would take far too much time. However, I would still like to learn how to draw backgrounds like this on my own without relying on a tutorial! I hope to gain the knowledge necessary to make great backgrounds and put it to use by practicing drawing after every meeting with my mentor. 

Speaking of my mentor… 

Describe my mentor! 

In all projects involving mentors during these past two years, I have had bad luck with finding them quickly. It took me a significant amount of time to find someone willing to mentor me, and though the time paid off and I was able to find amazing people, it was still stressful. I wanted to avoid that during this project. This year, I had great luck and my incredibly talented friend Sarina agreed to mentor me. I have always been impressed by Sarina’s art, so I am excited to learn from her. She has also been practicing drawing backgrounds during summer break, so this is perfect timing. I cannot wait to see where this project will take me!