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Self portrait
Flipping through the drawing course folder I came across the horrifying prospect of having to deliver a self portrait. I’ve never drawn anyone else before, other than the life models at art college over 50 years ago, so the idea of drawing myself turned me cold. At least I knew how to keep myself still – a photograph. But heck, that meant a selfie and I detest those too but it was going to have to happen. I decided to get some practice in so naturally I went for a large-ish canvas and slapped a layer of gesso on it. … Continue reading Self portrait
Sketch book: outdoors with fish, cats and a tree
Out in the garden in the sun so a bit of opportunity for the odd sketch. The first is the rump of one of my cats peering into the pond. It’s the view I’ll have for much of the summer. Plain old willow charcoal. This is a fairly awful sketch of one of the fish using coloured conte crayon. It had started out very fluid with shadows of its movement in the water but ended up rather static and frankly a bit grim. Still, learning curve. Finally my cherry tree and some pots. Charcoal smudged towards the left then detailed … Continue reading Sketch book: outdoors with fish, cats and a tree
Sketch book – sheep
The more I draw these animals, the easier the stroke and gesture become. There’s a simplification to the process, as if the necessary motor function has moved (is moving) from a conscious to an unconscious process. It’s moved away a little from the Henry Moore biro/wire frame technique so it’s a bit more mine. They all have muddy bottoms at the moment and what I thought were ewes with udders turn out to be anything but! The one bottom right still looks more bovine than ovine. Conte on gesso prepped support. Nice tooth to it. Continue reading Sketch book – sheep
Off-piste sheep drawings
Should have been drawing clouds but there aren’t any. Sheep are a bit cloud-shaped though, right? All in biro on sugar paper. Oddly different styles – one channelling my inner Henry Moore, the other rather minimalist. Sheep have interestingly flat heads and a kind of plimsoll line down from the ear, above the eye down to the nose. They also have the weirdest legs which always look as though they’ve been attached by someone who thought they were going the other way. *** 1st March and we have flat grey skies. Fortunately, my models were obliging again. Biro on sugar … Continue reading Off-piste sheep drawings
Left brain, right brain, or something else?
The old left brain/right brain chestnut keeps on popping up, especially in reference to creativity. Dead but it won’t lie down. It comes from some very old studies on people with severe epilepsy whose brain hemispheres were surgically separated to prevent seizures swamping the whole cortex, plus the observation that motor functions are generally right side dominant (governed by the left motor cortex), and that language tends to be located in the left temporal lobe. Early studies seemed to support a view that the left brain is logical, ordered, and language related while the right is more spatial and image-led. … Continue reading Left brain, right brain, or something else?
Sketch book: Henry Moore’s sheep and Found Art
I’ve been seeing others on the course doing delightful scribble drawings and so I thought I’d give that a try. I have a copy of Henry Moore’s sketchbook of sheep and these are copied from that. The one on the left looks a little more woolly cow than sheep, and the other has a shade of dog in its face but on the whole I’m quite pleased with how they came out – especially as I’d become rather used to sketching (for exercise 2 of project 4) without my close vision glasses and forgot to put them on. Maybe this … Continue reading Sketch book: Henry Moore’s sheep and Found Art
‘Every mistake is gift’
This quote, attributed to Ryuichi Sakamoto, the composer, singer/songwriter and much else, by Maryanne Hobbs who is primarily a BBC 6 Music DJ but also herself much more, comes as a response to questions about music. She had just played a track of his in which some feedback sounding like a rusty saw keeps intruding into the music and which he left there deliberately because it added something unplanned to the whole. It’s an intellectually easy argument to accept; random intrusions, non-scripted words, unintended drips and dribbles are the stuff of discovery and, as I’m finding out, can lead to … Continue reading ‘Every mistake is gift’
Part 2, Project 4, exercise 1
Brace yourself for a trip round my house. We’re starting with the business end – the room with the windows, the TV, the table full of keyboard, screen, and arty miscellany, the bookshelves, the windowsill being another sort of shelf, and the cupboards full of old vinyl LPs. I chose charcoal because it’s loose and I’m not likely to be able to execute anything more precise while standing, holding a sketch book in one hand and driving a piece of medium with the other. Here we go: Even I can’t tell immediately what this is but trust me when I … Continue reading Part 2, Project 4, exercise 1
Perspectives
This vase is driving me totally squint-eyed. I’m sure I used to have perspective nailed but from this evidence, clearly not. The proportions are out too and the one on the left doesn’t fit onto the page again. Nice colours though. So how can I tackle this? Take a photo, cut out the silhouette and draw from that to get a feel for it? Put in vanishing points and set the object within those? Go back to some of those exercises in perspective? All of the above? Since I only have one ruler and it never seems to be where … Continue reading Perspectives
Strayfish Arts 