I am going to document this because it’s my first and so far I have done almost everything wrong – mostly because I had no real grasp of what is required. First, I couldn’t find any guidelines as to what … Continue reading Preparing for formal assessment – documenting the first time so I don’t make these mistakes again
Perspective is the visual phenomenon that creates a sense of distance, shape, and volume in a scene. The simplest is called linear or parallel perspective, the one we would all recognise from films in which train tracks converge on a … Continue reading Part 2, research point 5 – linear perspective
This calls for standing and holding an A4 sketchbook while making quick sketches in four different directions from a central point. It was always going to be difficult, my cluttered surroundings being the least of the problems. For various reasons, … Continue reading Project 4, part 2, exercise 1 – quick sketches around the house
The final assignment for Drawing 1 is with my tutor, feedback is in a week or so, and all (all?!) that’s left is to prep for formal assessment in July. So I’ve been exercising my painting muscles and starting with … Continue reading Time to start painting again
Final piece for submission. Roughly 8″x 12″ gouache and acrylics on A3 hot-pressed watercolour paper. Demonstration of technical and visual skills – materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills. I found four paintings by different artists using different styles and made sketches of these in soft pastels, the originals being oils, acrylics, and woodblock print. I translated these, adhering to a differentiating extent to the key approaches used by the four artists: stylised and linear (Hokusai’s The Great Wave [~1829]), blended (Turner’s Fishermen upon a Lee shore in Squally Weather [1802] ), naïve and almost abstract (Klee’s … Continue reading Part 5 self evaluation
This section contains some exercises using cubic simplifications of bodies to get a feel of volume. For some reason, these just throw me in that I find the detachment from a whole figure confusing and unrelatable. I skipped those and went on to a copy of an actual figure, this one by Geoffrey Flack (2015). Mine is in graphite pencil and again I found some success with the gridding. I’m particularly pleased with the angle of the head but oh that hand! I think I might resort to photographing the original and zooming in on-screen so I can actually see … Continue reading Figure drawing atelier – volume
My second adventure with Juliette Aristides’ beautiful books. This one focuses, as the title suggests, on figure drawing and although I’m resisting life drawing where only nude models are available, I am prepared to work through this book as I did with the previous one in order to build skills. For my first trick, I seem to have drawn a naked Stormtrooper. Graphite pencil and putty rubber. This is probably my first moderately successful gridding effort. Usually, I find myself lost in the lines but this time I seem to have focused in on the right areas for the right … Continue reading Figure Drawing Atelier
Two key areas arising from tutor feedback for assignment four were the use of different blacks and the idea of liminals – edges or margins. A further area was an exploration of line in portraiture which I will address in another post. This one, I feel, takes priority because I can see how investigation might influence assignment five. I gridded a sheet of black A3 cartridge, added a further layer of black using gesso, and replicated the experimental cells so that I could apply different media on both a black and a white gesso surface. Gesso inevitably creates a bulk … Continue reading Responding to Part 4 assignment feedback – liminalities and black-in-black
This is a work-through of a book on drawing by Juliette Aristides. Copying is a quite a challenge for me, mostly because I’ve never done it, but also because I’m left handed and it didn’t take long to discover that … Continue reading The art of copying
The task is to draw a self portrait of any size in any medium and to find an interesting perspective, which means it’s the first time I’ve taken a selfie from below jaw level and discovered my nose has a central deviation to the right. It’s a wonder the rest of it is lined up as it should be. This is not the up-nostril shot, this is the warm-up, off-centre, eyeball-shift aspect. Biro to see if I can find some shapes that might work. Another quick sketch – white conte on black gesso. The aim, unlike the one above, is … Continue reading Assignment 4, self portrait
Strayfish Arts 