Life Drawing

I missed Wednesdays session so I came in for Friday morning instead, to make it up.

This weeks area is the beginning of observing in more detail, the drawing of heads, hands and feet. These are typically problem areas for many people, myself included, and can offset an otherwise technically accurate drawing with frustratingly clumsy or inarticulate depictions of specific features.

We began by observing the models head first of all. We were advised that the general shape of the head tends to be fairly simple in most instances, and so beginning the drawing of proportions can be reduced to a simple geometric combination. Greg pointed out that when looking at a person, it is usually not just the front of the face that is visible but even the crown of the head. As we were advised, I began my drawings by creating a sketchy circular shape, and then adding lines to represent the jawline in whatever position it was meant to be, adjusting it bit by bit until it started to look reasonably accurate, gradually adding more detail but still keep it relatively rough.

The drawings were quick and simplistic.

Different poses provided different problems but were exciting to experiment with, particularly at speed.

The drawings were good opportunity to practise placement and proportion without  spending a lot of time  on perfecting details at this stage.

The drawings were not particularly of a high quality but provided me with an understanding of what to do in future drawings, and with practise I expect my drawings to improve more rapidly.

This drawing in charcoal uses the notion of negative space and inversion to create variations in tone, in a manner that I found particularly interesting and enjoyable. The charcoal was applied to the paper and rubbed in to create an overall block of tone, onto which areas were added to more thickly for definition, or removed with an eraser for highlights. The effects were subtle and quite dramatic, however the angle at which I was sitting in relation to the model for this pose made it difficult and I would have liked to apply this technique on a larger drawing containing more of the figure.

Drawing hands & feet is definitely a challenge in terms of adding detail, however the outline is reasonably straightforward to accomplish, particularly when working gesturally.

Fine art notes

Today we were shown how to use water based ink/paint to make mono prints. The initial steps include:

• Preparing the work area; placing newspaper down and using masking tape to secure the 'working' plate, onto which paint is applied and rolled with one of two rollers (the 'wet' roller).
• A piece of paper of matching size (A5) is placed over the plate and the 'dry' roller is used to press ink thoroughly into the paper.
• Various effects can be achieved with marking off parts of the plate or placing materials under the painted area, ie: tissue paper/paper towels etc, for emphasis or texture.
• The effect is repeated onto multiple sheets of A5 paper, with differing effects each time.

The main objective is experimentation, but there is a knack to not over-working the prints, as very quickly the paint mix can become muddy and indistinct, and the prints cease to have the detail that they may have just had previously. Knowing when to stop is a key point.

With my prints today, I had about 6-8 A5 pieces, of which around half were of reasonable quality, however I did overwork almost all of them and this unfortunately reduced the quality of my results. With this in mind, I have decided to do more at home, but some additional materials will be required. This doesn't bother me too much because I suspect this is a technique I will enjoy utilising in the future, as I will the other forms of print making. There is an interesting contradiction that can be achieved through print making, which is the contrast of perfection of lines with the imperfection of paint being displaced. Impressions are made, and this is the key word I would use to describe printmaking in general, at least for me. It can be a strikingly versatile tool, also, for a variety of purposes and styles of working. It lends itself to experimentation in it's nature, too, with it being a somewhat unpredictable method (at least for a novice like I am). It is, basically, fun.

Greg talked to us about preparing our work for assessment later in the year, and talked us through how we can mount our work so far that we have done in Fine Art. We will need to use three A2 size pieces of card to place our work, including the drawings based on the 3D work and the matchbox drawings, the collage work we did yesterday and now also our print making experiments today. Greg strongly recommended that we aim to complete this process by the end of Tuesday next week, before our next stage of studying begins, which is Visual Communication with Ian. I have an additional piece to mount (chalk piece from Tuesday 26th, A2), so I will need four A2+ pieces for presenting my work later on. Greg also reiterated what Ian had discussed earlier in the day about presenting work for interview, ie: portfolios, which everyone who is considering University should be preparing for.

Work for the weekend:

• Complete collage colour theory pieces (need another three)
• Complete additional mono-prints (materials required, possibly inks although I will research alternative materials I may already have available at home that would be suitable)
• Re-attempt matchbox drawings, or at least complete additional sketches relating to this exercise.
• Gather A2 card (college shop apparently provides this for a decent price)

As for presenting  A5/A6 pieces, I may use two pieces of card per 'slate', cutting appropriately sized holes for each piece of work, so that these may be A) better presented, in a neat fashion and B) more secure. The card itself, if it is decently secured, should be more rigid also and look better. I recall Will's efforts with this earlier on in her time on the course last year - we found A3 size childrens 'colour in' cards, with a variety of themes including The Simpsons and Snow White. These were reversed obviously but ended up being perfectly usable for the task, and were very cheap. Will also had fun in colouring in a few of them that were left over.

Fine art notes

Today we went over colour theory, and were set a task of producing six pieces, each one tackling a specific area within colour theory. These ranged from using only primary colours, as well as using complimentary colours, warm and cool colours etc. I managed to produce three of the six pieces in the afternoon session, with a mind to trying to complete the remaining six the following day, time permitting. It is likely that there will be some work needed at home to complete all six to a standard I am happy with. My most interesting piece today was a5 size and was mostly made with coloured tissue paper (for warm colours) dipped into PVA glue mixed with (too much) water, to saturate the paper and make it more malleable. This led to some interesting results, however because of the high water content of the paper, it was too wet. Once this dries however this should be quite effective. Greg and I discussed the days work and also some preparatory work that I did in photoshop combining elements taken from photographs taken of the group 3D work at the beginning of the course. There was significant elements that could influence further pieces, and these pieces directly influenced today's work as well as a piece I prepared at home the day before. Greg commented on the textural qualities of the tissue paper based work, and that gave me the idea of photographing in extreme detail some of the intricate parts of the work once it had dried, possibly with a macro lens which would have to be provided by the technicians (this proved to be unavailable). I will bring my own Sony A390 DSLR tomorrow to photograph as well as I can some of these features, for further work in photoshop, to then continue on at home.

Fine art session notes

Today we worked from collected items from home, contained with matchboxes. My matchbox was for extra long matches so the box measured about 4x2 inches, and about 2cm deep. The items I included were: a USB memory stick with rubberised case, a cut-down cable tie, a clip, a spring, a screw, an AA battery, two motherboard connectors (connecting to each other), and a stereo jack. We were asked to draw literal but straightforward drawings of the contents of the box, ie: line drawings, not been too concerned with shading etc, at A5/A6 scale. I found this task extraordinarily difficult and frustrating. I had not anticipated so much difficulty in determining proportions at this scale, in fact I could safely say that it was the exact opposite to what I expected, which was that this would be a straightforward task because of the reduced scale and relative simplicity of the items. After an hour and a half of attempting several times to draw the items, in a variety of configurations within the box, we had our afternoon break. After expressing my frustrations over a cigarette with a fellow student, it became clear I was not the only person struggling, and after speaking to other people as well, I quickly felt better about the task. It had become very frustrating and stressful and because of my own perceptions about the simplicity of the task I even felt embarrassed about it, but this was unnecessary. After returning to the class I began work again, feeling a little refreshed but still struggling to a degree with the subject. I decided to alter my approach (I had previously tried a variety of techniques to overcome the problems with proportion, including negative space, measuring, and using a ruler) and take the best drawing out of the several I had attempted, which even then was not one that I was particularly satisfied with, and used copy paper to trace the image but only in a very loose manner, using only straight lines in fineliner with a ruller. This broke down the image into crudge geometric shapes. I repeated this process three times in all, on separate pieces of copy paper. Later I used pencil and masking tape to create blocks of solid shading. Finally, as a fairly spur of the moment impulse, I used masking tape to bind the class summary worksheet behind the copy paper. This came about as I had quickly searched for some white paper to put behind the copy paper, simply to provide me with a clearer backdrop to view the lines I had created better. I thought about how frustrated I had been with the brief, and considered how I might instead benefit from that experience, and link it into the process of the work. The work itself became visually complex and peculiar, and combined with the text of the worksheet behind it, describing the lessons themselves as per the lesson plans, somewhat summarised how the experience had felt for me. I intend now to create a larger piece of work, to A2 size, over the weekend and hopefully have it ready for next weeks lesson.

This has been an interesting experience, though I am going to reserve judgement as much as possible at this stage as the main piece of work hasn’t yet been started. What started as deeply frustrating may well be turned around into something positive, reminding me of this quote:

“As a rule I don't like suffering to no purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.” - Nigerian poet Chinua Achebe

Fine art session notes

Started with several A5 sketches based upon last weeks 3D project, in a variety of drawing styles - including continuous line drawing, on paper covered in emulsioon paint (the paper kept tearing, wasn’t impressed), with fineliner, charcoal, negative space, etc. We then combined elements of these drawings into a larger ‘master drawing’ at A2 size. I mainly worked in charcoal, with some graphite use to mark out rough lines. Didn’t get through as much of the piece as I would have liked but I will bring it home to continue and finish there before next week. I intend to incorporate other elements except charcoal but I’m unsure what as of yet. I have been using a stencil effect to create lines, namely curves, which works very effectively and is reminiscent of the curves of the cable-ties and bundles of cocktail sticks.