Assignment One

A selection of drawings and experiments for the final piece. I did them on a variety of different sized paper so wanted to put them all together on an A2 piece. 

I found this assignment ok, and it was a good first one to get me back into drawing a large scale main piece. I do however feel as if I may have gone at it like a bull in a china shop, and with a little too much enthusiasm. I fear I may have spent a little too long on them, instead of producing a more basic image focusing on the previous project work.

Should I have used the hatching technique on one or both of the pieces, or did it not matter?? 

Should there be more prep work? 

I was happy with my objects that I chose and the composition that I ended up with as I thought that i'd managed to get a reasonable amount of depth to each drawing and a fairly interesting spread of items. 

I purposely tried to choose circular objects as i find those most difficult at times, really to see what I could do with the many lines on the camera lenses. Likewise with the other main piece, I used a lot of watercolour as a base layer, then added in some pencil crayon and chalk to add some extra detail. 

As part of the prep work I started off looking at stationary, and even experimented with a mono printing techniques and some charcoal. I wanted to try and use some different media to see what I wanted to use as well as settle on which objects I would draw.

Natural

Having in the past been more that a little paint shy I again wanted to try something more with watercolours. I used some watercolour primarily as in a previous drawing in my sketchbook I was more than a little surprised at a job well done, I thought. The larger piece I thought turned out well. I put in some varied textures and colours, set about trying to observe the lighting as in previous projects. I had started to use watercolour on the apple shadows, but found it a little too much, particularly as i'd only used cartridge paper and not the thicker watercolour paper, so I switched to pencil crayon. 

I felt that I could have spent more time perfecting this again, but decided on calling It a day before I overworked it. As a target for myself I will try not to spend quite so long and try to use faster techniques. I like realism too much I think.

If I did the Assignment again I would still go for similar object choices as I was happy with those. I would maybe have trying to have used the hatching techniques in them. I guess if i'm honest I avoided the hatching as I'm not really a fan of large scale images that have had the shade and tone added in this way. 

Watercolour

I tried to a variety of objects for my main piece, including these pine cones. I found them quite tricky and was not over the moon with the results so decided not to use them in my main piece. I need to apply more contrast and variety of highlights and shadows for me. Something to re-visit later. 

Charcoal

Sketches using some hatching and blended tone. I tried to shoe more tone in this image.

 A few sketches and some attempts at fine tuning my use of watercolour and pencil crayon. I was also still not set at this stage on what I was including in my final piece.

                                                                           

A different angle and approach to the skull. Pencil I felt created a different mood and a completely different look.

Natural material made books in Pastel

MAIN PIECE - NATURAL OBJECTS

Man Made Objects

Experiments with printing ink. I put a layer of ink on the table, then drew the objects on a piece of paper that was placed over the ink. The result is then a little bit of a surprise as you don't see the result until you lift the paper from the ink.  

The same left using ink. I was going to try and add some extra colour over the top, but then decided that this wasn't what I wanted for my second piece so abandoned it.

Another version of the Ink image drawn in pencil and colour added using watercolour and crayon.

Strict watercolour only piece to see what happened. A little wonky but overall very encouraging.

Charcoal on Yellow paper for a different look. 

 I looked at a variety of materials to use and a few different compositions, but decided to settle on something I was more comfortable with for a first Assignment.

MAIN PIECE

I decided I had spend long enough on it an decided to stop and change nothing else, then I noticed the strap to the left which I then wasn't happy with. I felt that the line and perspective was a little off. 

I also wanted the drawing to have a smoother look to it, but due to the materials used and the paper grain, it was a little rough for my taste in the end. 

MAIN PIECE - MAN MADE
Pencil & Pencil Crayon Only

The objects challenged me as I wanted, so in that respect I got what I wanted from the piece. Happy overall, but wouldn't put it in a gallery!!