Sunday 26 February 2017

SEMESTER TWO: Week 4 Homework

After the lesson in class where we created composition using collaged textures and cut out shapes, the homework task asked us to create a further piece based on this work. I ended up doing this in my sketchbook to keep all my homework tasks together, which looking back, may have limited me size-wise.

I was cutting our circles of the textures from class to use as examples of what we'd made, when I realised they could work quite well as framing elements for a composition. I then tried layering the circle cut-outs under the animals and figure I had made, and they added a really interesting dynamic to the page. Having multiple circle shapes keeps the composition consistent as well, and draws your eye around the page. The task was to create a piece that had a narrative of its own, and I think I have been successful in this respect. I chose this pose of Mel from class to repeat in this homework, because the pose itself is very emotive and brings a story of its own. Layering the birds around the figure is kind of meant to show a relationship between the two, like possibly she is dreaming or troubled by these animals.

The hardest part of this homework for me was having to draw the animals and Mel only having my class drawings as reference! It made it harder to achieve accuracy as you only had a line drawing or collage to rely on. For this reason I'm not totally happy with my accuracy - however, this homework was more focused on experimentation with composition, so proportion and perspective are not such important factors.


Saturday 25 February 2017

(SEMESTER TWO) Week 4: Life Model, Animals, Birds

This week Mel was joined by some stuffed creatures in glass display cases which raised a whole new set of challenges! It meant choosing compositions was a lot more complicated and allowed lots of experimentation with sizing and perspective.

Warm-up exercises - top left: 2 mins, top right: 5 mins for both,  bottom 3: 10 mins for all.
The warm ups helped me get a bit more confident with the subject matter before heading into the longer/more complicated full scene drawings. I made an effort to keep my lines loose and not worry too much about the proportions as this session was more focusing on texture, mark-making and composition!

10 minutes - continuous line & semi-blind
This is possibly my favourite of this week's drawings. I think the technique worked well with the subject matter in the way that it helped link the composition together and the whole image has a sense of fluidity. I even quite like the slight 'wonkiness' of the lines and the perspective, because I think it gives the simple line drawing a sense of life and movement.

LEFT: Mel and (3) animals - 5 minutes
RIGHT: Mel and (4) animals - 10 minutes
My first mistake with this piece was probably not doing each exercise on a separate piece of paper. It meant I was limited with space and couldn't work as expressively as I'd have liked. It also negatively affects the final look of each composition. I also struggled with timing, as you can see the left drawing was meant to be Mel and 3 animals while I only managed 1, and the right was meant to be Mel and 4 animals and I only managed 3. The right hand side is probably the better of the two, as it's less stylised and more accurate, as well as more finished; however it's still very lacking in tone and proportion.

Textured paper collage - 50 minutes
For this piece we used textures we had made at the start of the lesson, using paint & rollers and charcoal rubbings, to create the animals themselves and then arrange them in a composition. We were also told to include Mel but I decided against this as I was happy with having the animals larger, and I was more focused on them anyway as they are something we don't often get to reference from. It was a fun exercise being more hands on with cutting and collaging, and I enjoyed thinking about which textures would work best for each element of the picture. Surprisingly this took me the whole 50 minutes, as I found the cutting was very time consuming! Therefore the boxes had to be rushed a little and I'm not sure whether they have added anything positive to the composition. I felt it was important to include them though, to separate and frame the individual focal points, so I'm glad I didn't leave the background space empty.

Saturday 18 February 2017

SEMESTER 2: Week 3 Homework

This homework was my favourite of all of the tasks we have been given so far. I found it fun having so much freedom with composition, medium and creating an atmosphere. I went to a local nature reserve near my house and there was an amazing sunset, which created some brilliant extremes of light and dark contrast. It also gave me the opportunity to experiment with both colour and monotone.

I think the drawings I made are all very different but each conveys a different atmosphere and different area of the location, which gives a nice range of outcomes. I particularly like the last drawing, as I think the rubber/charcoal technique lent itself really well to creating moody atmosphere through tone. Having said this, the colour drawing in oil pastel is also successful in my opinion, just in a different way. It captures the sense of light and beauty, and I enjoyed experimenting with the mark making here!





(SEMESTER TWO) Week 3: Skeletons, Anatomy and the Gothic

This week our session included skeleton models which our life model interacted with. It was a really interesting and fun session due to the contrast between the real body and the much more angular and sharp forms of the skeleton. This led to a very experimental session with lots of expressive mark making and textural work.

20 minute warm up exercise - candle wax, diluted ink, paper towel
 The first activity of this week's session involved drawing blindly with white candles and then applying diluted indian ink (ink mixed with water) over the top with a paper towel, to create a wax-resist effect. This is a technique most of us remembered from childhood, but I had never thought to apply it to figure drawing! I really like the results of the warm up, because I think the technique lent itself brilliantly to the subject matter. The candle wax meant we had to draw blindly and only saw the results once we painted over it, so you couldn't be over-cautious with your marks and had to rely on what you were seeing! The outcomes are quite sketchy and loose, and I even ended up doing some using the paper towel as a painting tool, which are equally gestural.

25 minutes - charcoal
This piece was more structured and I used charcoal which gave more defined lines but still kept a looseness. For some reason I struggled with perspective on this piece, and I think that I should have measured more in order to get distances and proportion correct, as the inaccuracy lets the piece down. Aside from this, I like the skeleton here, and found the shapes and curves of its form fun to draw, which I think can be seen from the relaxed manner in which it has been drawn. In contrast Mel looks very stiff and solid and almost fades into the background, and I am not happy with this area - a lot can be learnt from this!


25 minutes - charcoal
I was drawing faster by this point because after the last drawing, where the figure was very incomplete, I wanted to make sure I had time to get both the figure and the skeleton fully developed. As a result I find this drawing better as the tone is nicely balanced on either side, and the composition works well because of this. Because I was working faster here I also had more time for checking and measuring proportions, which I think is visible in the improved accuracy of this piece.

25 minutes - charcoal
The third of the charcoal drawings was a standing pose so I chose to frame my drawing with portrait orientation. This worked well for the composition; however I didn't manage to fit the full figure on the page which led to the feet being cut off the page. This is a shame because the composition looks a little interrupted, and aside from this it would have been one of my stronger pieces. I'm happy with the proportions of this piece, and I made use of negative space in between the skeleton and the human figure to size them correctly in relation to one another, which really helped. If I had the chance to improve this piece I would go back and add more tone, so that there was depth and the subjects were brought forward. I don't really mind that this piece ended up as more of a line drawing though, because I'd much rather spend the time getting proportions accurate than shading an incorrect drawing!

30 minutes - charcoal tonal study
This piece allowed me to experiment with tone which I perhaps hadn't used much in the previous few drawings. I chose to include lots of different mark making techniques such as the side of the charcoal stick, and directional mark making, to bring variation and further experiment with these skills. The back of the model caught the light nicely, so the image ended up with some interesting block areas of dark and light contrast. The perspective could be worked on a little more, maybe by remeasuring angles of lines especially where the mat is concerned, and the skeleton is overworked so not massively clear. The figure is a strong point of the image though, and I learnt a lot here.

30 minutes - charcoal drawn into with eraser

Close-up
The final image of the day was this charcoal tonal reduction drawing. I found the time limit for this piece to be quite tough so the outcome could have a lot more added to it. The stage I got to has some positive elements, and I've included a close-up of the most successful area of the drawing in my opinion. I think the head and shoulders of the model and skeleton turned out nicely, as I had developed the tone here the most, and defined some areas with charcoal lines. I deliberately left the faces loose and suggestive and I am happy with the sense of mystery/emotion this brings. Had I worked quicker or had more time, I think the rest of the piece would have been strengthened by these same additions.

Thursday 9 February 2017

SEMESTER TWO: Week 2 Homework


Continuing from our class work with portraits and close-ups, the homework consisted of 4 portrait tasks. 

I enjoy drawing people so I quite liked this homework task; however, I do sometimes struggle with getting a likeness, so as this was an aim for the homework I was a little worried. Looking at the outcomes, I do feel like I managed to overcome this and achieve relatively good likenesses with most of the portraits! The one of Queen Victoria is probably the least successful in this respect, as I struggled to keep accuracy with the looser medium of charcoal, I think. I do like the effect the charcoal created though, giving it quite an old-fashioned look which suits the subject. 

I used quite safe mediums for these portraits because I was worried about likenesses and being accurate. Looking back I think I could have stepped out of my comfort zone a little. Despite this I really like the pencil drawings and think they look mostly realistic and lifelike. I also really like the way the coloured pencil drawing turned out. This is probably my most adventurous of the 4, which I feel pays off in the outcome, giving it a vibrant and striking feel. The limited colour palette has been successful at keeping a sophisticated simplicity to the composition.

1: A Visually interesting figure from a magazine (not famous)


2: A friend


3: A favourite musician


4: A well-known historical figure, pre 1900


(SEMESTER TWO) Week 2: Close Ups


WEEK 2: CLOSE UP WORK - EXPRESSIVE HANDS AND PORTRAITS

Unfortunately having missed week 1, semester 2 started with week 2 for me! We were starting by focusing on faces and hands as lots of people had requested specific skill sessions for the new semester.

I really enjoy drawing faces and hands but can sometimes find them challenging so I think this session was valuable in getting a more technical understanding in how to approach these subjects.

Series of quick experimental drawings - 20 secs x 3, 30 secs x 2, 1 min x 2.

More experimental quick drawings - 2 min x 2, 2 min blind x 2, and non dominant hand 5 min x 1.
These experimental drawings were a good exercise to kick off the session and get used to approaching the subject in a less conventional manner. I found that the quicker drawings (20 and 30 seconds) often turned out more realistic/better proportioned than my longer attempts, where I sometimes fell into my own drawing style and lost accuracy. The blind drawings had a similar outcome - despite looking more abstract the quality of line is a lot more fluid and interesting than the faces I tried to keep realistic.

5 min continuous line
This drawing used continuous line and we couldn't remove our pencil from the paper. I always find this technique useful as it makes you consider things in relation to one another, and you think about composition and quality of line more than you usually would. A successful element of this piece for me is the variation of line that I used to create tone and depth - for example around the edge of the face and nose where I used more pressure for a darker line to separate from the hair. This teaches me that you don't always need shading to create depth. I don't think my accuracy is brilliant, however, but in the time space of 5 minutes I am pleased with the outcome and found that working quickly is getting easier for me!

5 mins planning, 5 mins mark making - 5B pencil

5 mins planning, 5 mins mark making - charcoal
I found it especially interesting how switching between markmaking techniques could have such an effect on the emotion and quality of the final outcome. This is particularly obvious in these side by side images, where the left image hasd been drawn with 5B pencil and the right with charcoal. Despite both taking 10 minutes, and using 5 minutes for planning, 5 minutes for mark making each, the results are very different. The pencil piece came out quite soft, loose and gestural with a more tonal quality, while the charcoal and the varied mark making techniques gave the right hand image a harder, more linear and contrasting look.


15 mins varied mark making - 6B loose pencil
This drawing is my favourite of the session and in my opinion the strongest piece. Taking inspiration from the previous exercise I tried to bring a wide variety of marks into the piece and not use too many 'outlines'. As a result I think it gave the piece a dynamic and lively feel which works quite well with the interesting angle I was drawing from!

15 mins mark making - only 1cm marks allowed - 3B pencil
Although this piece has some proportion issues, I like the mark making technique we were using as I had not attempted it before. It was quite a challenge to limit myself to lines of 1cm or less, but meant that the end result was very different to my usual work and forced me out of my comfort zone with drawing style. I found it interesting to vary the direction of the marks to suggest tone and the direction of light and shadow, and learn that this could be used in place of solid lines to define certain shapes.

10 mins silhouette outline - 2B pencil
Looking just at the outline of the face and shoulders gave me the opportunity to focus more on proportion and negative space definition. In that respect I think this piece is more successful than some other drawings from this session. Once again directional lines were useful here, however the simplicity of the exercise meant that they had to be placed more carefully as there was no tone to bring the image to life. I found that some areas needed only a few lines to suggest the shapes which stopped overworking and heaviness.

10 mins silhouette negative space - 2B and 3B pencils
Again, this image was focused around negative space so required lots of focus and continuous looking and checking! It was challenging to just focus on the outline rather than adding any detail, but it gave a bold and contrasting result.

10 mins proportion study - charcoal
We then moved on to hands. My position made things a little tricky as I wasn't massively close to the model, however it meant I was forced to constantly be looking and staying focused, which is good practice for life drawing! For a quick study in charcoal I think this piece turned out okay, and I tried to remember the previous exercises when drawing my lines so they stayed loose and gestural. However, I do think I relied on my own imagery in this drawing, for example with the mug, which does look a little too stylised. I need to remember to not retreat into my own drawing style and what I think it should look like.

10 mins mark making tonal study - 4B pencil
In contrast this drawing is much more successful both in accuracy and style. The limitations of the technique meant I had to rely on what I could see and this meant it became more realistic and proportionally correct. I enjoyed bringing tone into the image, and experimenting with layering marks to build this up. Also, even though I did not finish in the 10 minutes, I find this half-finished effect somewhat effective as it lets the viewer's eye fill in the spaces.

20 mins line and tonal study - 4B pencil
This image is a longer version of the previous one and continues to improve with use of tone and line. I brought what I had learnt about variation of line, mark making and directional tone into the image, and I think it works well as a striking piece. The position of the hands could probably use some refining, for example, I should maybe have involved some measuring techniques to check the lengths of the fingers and the angles. Despite this, I think there's a lot I can take away from the image.

10 mins tonal studies (2 attempts) - 6B pencil
I am also pleased with this final image, which I had two attempts at. The shorter time allowance meant I was working more quickly which is reflected in the expressive lines. I find that as a result the hands look quite accurate and have a sense of freshness and life about them. 

I really enjoyed this session as a way to kick off the semester of drawing. Not only did it teach me lots of technical skills in general, that could be applied to a range of drawing tasks, it also refined my approach to specifically detailed drawing areas, such as facial features and hands.