This task is very much about movement and the use of gesture. I found some suitable images via a Google search and made sure I used quick strokes to execute the flow of movement in each. I will also admit … Continue reading Part 4, project 3, exercise 4 – energy
This exercise requires the production of six poses and again I’ve used myself and mirrors. I did rather forget about some aspects of the task through focusing on getting the shapes as near to right as possible, and although I … Continue reading Part 4, project 3, exercise 2 – essential elements
The task is to use a model and to block in basic shapes as they sat. Lacking a model, I am using internet images and my own photographs. Rather than detail, I’m aiming at form using more gesture than measurement. This suits my way of perceiving shape; too much attention to that kind of detail and I lose track of the whole. Quick sketch of a seated figure via Bing. This is a sculpture listed by American Legacy Fine Arts, the artist’s name isn’t given. I’ve used black conte. I didn’t get the angle of the head, either from the … Continue reading Part 4, project 3, exercise 1 – basic shapes
I have found a way to do this, a compromise between my sense of exploitation when using (and it’s that word) the bodies of others for my own purpose and making do with static figures in photographs caught in movement. … Continue reading Part 4, project 3, exercise3 – stance
Vis a vis townscapes and my preference for lurking under concrete bridges rather than replicating the lovely-to-live-in-but-twee-to-draw local town and village scenes. I’ve been talking about brutal architecture as though I’d invented the term but it turns out I didn’t – it’s a whole movement! I grew up with it though; the science lab added to the side of my late 1800’s school, the motorways that began to plough huge furrows across the landscape – we saw these on the telly but they didn’t reach us in Yorkshire till the early 1970s – and the kitchen sink dramas that seemed … Continue reading Brutalist architecture
Instinctively this feels ok but as soon as I saw instructions that included rulers and viewers I was thrown because that just isn’t me. I’m realising that I’m more intuitive even though that often leads to wobbles and inaccuracies. I think though that I have a few techniques up my sleeve now to help compensate, one of them developed during an earlier exercise and that led to an interior drawing that I rather liked (I may re-purpose it for one of the perspective tasks). It involves using one of my own photos, reducing it to monochrome, increasing the contrast, and … Continue reading Part 3 project 3 exercise 2 fore/middle/background
This is a landscape project and I’d been considering working a bit more on my Tin Pots Hill piece but the sun came out and water is more attractive, especially down the estuary. I find holding a sketch pad in one hand while standing to draw (and taking a seat and an easel to an outdoor venue isn’t possible) so I take photos to bring back home. In this instance, I found I preferred a panoramic view I’d taken earlier so I ran this through Paintshop Pro to reduce it to grey-scale, then manipulated the contrast for drama. This is … Continue reading Part 3 project 3 composition
Monochrome which I’ve discovered at this late stage in life, doesn’t mean black and white, it means mono [one] chrome [colour]. I’ve tackled a jug and an onion on a plain white surface with a white background. I’ve been watching Platon (Antoniou) [Abstract: the art of design; Netflix] whose photography is stark and through that, more revealing than it might otherwise be, and found myself nudged in that direction. It didn’t extend to my treatment of the image unfortunately so I’ll need to go a few more rounds with this idea. First the sketch which mapped out the shadows but … Continue reading Part 2, Project 3, exercise 4
After some very helpful feedback from my tutor who, in essence, said to just get on and experiment [apologies if I’ve made an interpretation of convenience there!], this is an A3 piece, gesso prepped, and then layered up with pastels and oil crayons. I’ve also dribbled and dabbed inks onto the red vase in homage to the pattern it has across the front. I’m very fond of what gesso does to a surface as there are so many surprises that I can capitalise on with the subsequent layers. Some of them can be a little inconvenient – that patch to … Continue reading Part 2, Project 2, Exercise 3 mixed media
Experimenting with mixed media. I should be in my element here as I’ve never been afraid to mix anything with anything else – gouache and pencil and ink and acrylic and bits of collage and sometimes a drag or two of oil pastel. I’m guessing some sort of discipline about choice might be more important in this task though. I’ve begun by applying a coarse layer of acrylic gesso on a sheet of A2 cartridge because I like the texture it provides and the way it holds all sorts of media, although I haven’t tried with inks or pencil yet. … Continue reading Part 2, Project 3, exercise 3
Strayfish Arts 