(SEMESTER TWO) Week 7: Experimental

In our session this week, we did not make the environment as planned, and instead revisited some previous areas that we wanted to strengthen our skills in. In the Friday class I know they put together an environment from hanging materials and drew within that, which I think would have been exciting and unusual! Unfortunately I could not attend the Friday class, but I still got some good pieces out of my Monday session and am pleased I was able to revisit some previous weak points.

Warm-up exercises - 2B pencil
1 - 5 minutes, 2 - 4 minutes, 3 - 3 minutes
4 - 2 minutes, 5 - 1 minute, 6 - 30 secs
7 - 15 secs, 8 - 10 secs, 9 - 5 secs

As usual we started with some warm-ups, and Mel went through a variety of poses which I enjoyed as it helped us get back into the swing of things quickly. We started with some longer drawings, and progressed to shorter and shorter times until we ended with a 5 second drawing! It was a challenge to get anything down at all during such a short time but it forced me to be very spontaneous and the result is simple yet effective as the rough bones of a figure. I am also pleased with my 1 minute drawing, where I think I achieved foreshortening quite well despite having to draw very fast. The first three drawings are probably the least successful as I had more time to be tentative and hadn't warmed up properly at that point.

3 x 10 minute drawings, overlaid - blue pastel, HB pencil, Micron fineliner 08, charcoal

 This was an interesting exercise as you had to focus quite hard in order to draw separate poses on top of one another! I enjoyed seeing how different drawings and mediums could work together to create one final composition, and it made you think lots about placement and perspective. During the exercise I recieved feedback from Jaime that the micron fineliner line was becoming lost despite being 'on top' of the blue pastel and pencil layers. This is because the line was too thin and therefore too similar to the pencil lines. I decided to change mediums and drew over the fineliner lines with charcoal, which helped considerably and brought this layer to the forefront. This ended up working well because this was the layer with the facial features so defined the areas of detail nicely.

45 minutes - 6B pencil

Our first sustained pose was 45 minutes so I could take my time with this piece. The position I was drawing from was quite tricky as it meant Mel was almost totally foreshortened and therefore a lot of my time was spent measuring, re-measuring, and planning. I considered moving to an easier position however I was determined to give this a good shot as I wanted to test what I had learnt over the course of the semester (and semester one). I think that on the whole the perspective isn't too bad, considering how difficult the angle was. The angle of the back perhaps may be slightly off, as the legs appear to be more vertical to the head rather than retreating backwards. I should probably have double checked the sizes of body parts in relation to each other to avoid this. However, I think the yoga mat and the tone that I added in help to counteract this, so the perspective isn't totally unsuccessful. The mark making is a successful part of this image in my opinion - I wanted to bring in techniques I used in previous weeks, and I love the texture and direction that this gives to the figure, especially the hair. The fact that Mel was reading a book was also a nice touch, as this created an interesting composition with a bit of a story behind it.

35 minutes - dark blue, light blue and white pastel & 4B pencil

Our second sustained pose drawing again included foreshortening for me where I was standing in the room, but this was a little easier as the torso was upright so only the legs needed foreshortening. I spent longer on the measuring with this piece as the colour didn't require too much time to apply. This paid off and I recieved positive feedback on my foreshortening here, which was a lovely boost of confidence to get in our final session with the model. I worked really hard on this drawing and am very pleased that my skills show improvement from last semester and this semester's earlier sessions, because it encourages me to keep working on them and that the module has been beneficial. I am also pleased with my use of tone here, which I tried not to overwork - I think it gives a effective sense of 3D and keeps the image light. The composition could have been centralised to frame the subject better, but generally I am very happy with this outcome.

10 minutes - willow charcoal

I finished the final 45 minute drawing with about 10 minutes to spare and to avoid overworking it I went onto a new piece of paper and did this 10 minute study. I fancied trying it in more of a linework style considering I had just been focusing more on tone and colour. As a quick piece I think this is pretty accurate, and I enjoyed practising some quick mark making skills to end the session.