Week 2

Life Drawing:

Our class was split into two groups so we could use the time we had with the model efficiently. This wasn't the first time I have done life drawing but It certainly felt like it. The model was a woman which was new, I had only previously worked with a male model. I've been told that having a woman to draw is much more interesting anyway because they are generally curvier which in turn makes it a more challenging session. I certainly found it very challenging.

We started off with quick two minute drawings trying to capture the correct proportions of the subject, this was all very basic until the subject changed positions. The slight change in posture or angle changed everything, I wasted a lot of time trying to work out the measurements when I really should have just gone for it and drawn everything that I saw. We explored many techniques such as timed drawings, continuous line, weaker hand drawing and finally a drawing with two pencils stuck together. This was to add further depth to our drawing.

Left Handed

30 seconds, 1 minute and 2 minute drawings.

My favourite one was definitely the weaker hand drawing, this was because it felt so unnatural and free. The fact i had limited control over it made it all the better, I felt like I wasn't disciplining myself. I was becoming more expressive. It also made me focus more on what I was seeing, a massive part of Life drawing sessions is developing what you can see and how you can transfer that to the paper.

Continuous Line Drawing.

Pencil and Pen Simultaneous Drawing

30 Minute Drawing

What we leave behind:

We were asked to bring in any rubbish or just anything we were planning to throw away. At first I thought this would be linked to consumerism but it turns out it was about what we leave behind. As a starter activity to warm us up we had to draw ten individual objects with only 30 seconds per item. We had to use continuous line with a bold fine-liner which was right into my comfort zone. I prefer ink and pens over pencils.

We took one of the objects we brought in and had to disfigure it, change its appearance in any way we could. My object was a Tropicana Carton which I only scrunched up very subtlely. 

Our task was to draw this, in proportion, with paint onto a sheet the size of two A1 sheets stuck together. This was a huge piece of paper. We couldn't use a brush, only a piece of cardboard. This was a brilliant idea, what better way to loosen us up and throw us out of our comfort zone than removing our brushes and giving us something so strange yet usable as our tool. It was a great idea, we wouldn't know what to expect as out outcome, we were blind and it made us concentrate on the marks we were making even more. We were focused. Looking at the object we were drawing and concentrating on every single mark never became so important.

After completing our drawing we had to stick our paint palette into our sketchbook and redraw our object on top of it. It was a really strange request especially as all of our drawings were done with black acrylic. Our palette was simply a small piece of ripped up cardboard. The idea was to quickly change up the size of our canvas and again take us out of our comfort zone. 

        

As a black fine-liner was ruled out by my use of black acrylic paint I opted to use oil pastels. It was only meant to be quick and because of that my drawing wasn't very accurate. The proportions were far from correct. However I did capture my object very well considering the scale and what I had to work with. 

We moved on to creating a sculpture out of the many objects we had brought along with us, this included using tracing paper to combine the drawings we had previously done to create something weird and wonderful. 

These were the combinations I came up with, we had to create ten. As you can see many of them are very simple, combining bottles and lids, Whilst others looked strange and complicated to even it out a bit. Using the rubbish we bought we had to actually create these sculptures. We were using ordinary objects to create something extraordinary. 

This was the object design I went with, It was mid-range in terms of complexity and it actually came out pretty well. 

After we had created our extraordinary sculpture it was time to draw it, just like we had for our singular piece of rubbish. Starting off with the shape/form of the object was what we did, in order to help with this we used graph paper as it had a preset grid on the paper, this helped with the straight lines and our proportions much more than plain paper would.

Using the graph paper to draw on did feel strange at first, It was far different to standard cartridge paper. The grid really did help with my measurements, I was able to keep the sides of the object the same length and eventually everything became proportional. It helped me the most when it came to my straight edges, usually I would struggle to keep my lines parallel.

Colour was the next formal element we were going to explore but only pens and pencils, no paint. I think this decision was made because watercolour and acrylic paints are too easy to blend and get the colour I would need. Pencils are a little more complex, you need to start off with the correct base colour and use the pencil in a way that avoids the horrible pencil lines that often occurs with child level colouring. Sadly that was something unavoidable.

In the end my drawing came out pretty successful considering the amount of struggle I underwent. I failed to find the correct navy blue/grey colour of the wrap box so I had to compromise and combine a mixture of turquoise, dark blue and a grey to match as closely as possible. Even still the colour seemed way off what it was meant to be. It looked stranger the more I looked at it so I decided to focus on the edges which were yellow and I knew I could replicate onto my drawing. 

This was a good decision because the addition of another colour naturally helped the focus shift from what I perceived as a bad drawing. It all started to slowly come together. It started to look great, the colours were looking fine and the proportions were correct, I slowly started to add shading and the reflections of the glossy material. 

I didn't get to finish the whole piece but that didn't bother me so much, what bothered me more was my child like colouring, If I had coloured a little softer and with more care it would have come out a lot smoother and, in my eyes, a lot more successful.