ASSIGNMENT 1

Still life; Manmade objects

After a few quick sketchbook ideas I did an A2 graphite pencil drawing of  my chosen objects. The copper plate looked totally wrong in shape but overall I liked the composition. I found the basket quite difficult to draw - I needed to really concentrate! I considered narrowing the paper slightly to get more of a feeling of height in the drawing. The next drawing I did in felt pen. I changed the composition slightly, moving the bottle across to a slightly more central position and placing it on top of the plate. With this composition you can only see a small part of the plate which I thought was a shame as it such a nice shape and you could get some really interesting colour in a final piece. I decided to develop the first study. I chopped of a little of the paper down one side to narrow the paper. I like the way the scarf almost framed the drawing in my studies, so I draped it in a way that it hung down either side. My final preliminary study was again a small scale colour pencil one, but this time I drew a grid over the drawing in order to enlarge it - and so that my circular plate wouldn't be so warped looking.

For the final piece, the grid was crucial to the composition and I was really glad to have used this method. I chose to use mostly oil pastel but used coloured pencil, graphite, watercolour, and pen and ink too. I wanted a 'rustic' feeling to the drawing. All the objects I chose are manmade, but they are all made of natural materials - glass, willow, copper and hemp. The objects are pretty well interpreted but they are all very individual in design, and so I'm not sure how well they work together as a group - in fact I believe they looked better as a group in the pencil drawings, before I added colour and detail. I like the composition but think maybe I should have left it as it was at my third preliminary study stage, where you can see more of the basket. The colours in the copper plate were really hard to achieve. I haven't managed to capture that metallic look and definitely needed more preliminary studies to get this. I'm not sure oil pastel was the best medium for it. I was quite unsure about what to do with the areas behind the basket (inbetween the weave) - I didn't want to overcomplicate what was already the most distracting area of the the drawing by making it more complicated and drawing in all the detail behind (which was essentially more basket!) so I kind of filled in the gaps with a generic colour. I know now that I shouldn't have avoided the detail because I'm sure it would have looked better had I stuck to copying what was in front of me. The label on the bottle looks rather flat and the reflections in the bottle could be better, but overall, I'm reasonably happy with it - but more because it being a good composition than anything else.

ASSIGNMENT 1

Still life; Natural objects

After some sketchbook studies of my chosen objects I did two A2 preliminary studies. I found it difficult to fit the objects on the page in a way that I was happy with. I also needed something in the background because the composition appears to be floating. The composition generally needed rethinking. So for my third preliminary study I flipped the paper 90degrees so that I had a landscape page. I also sat the objects on an old leather suitcase with interesting texture. The drawing then had vertical and horizontal lines running through it. It wasn't a great drawing really, just a quick sketch, but I was happier with this new composition than with the first idea. I then did another drawing of the same compositon and messed about with colour and mark making ideas. Finally I did a small scale colour pencil study for the final drawing on brown paper. I very much liked working on brown paper as it kind of crinkles as you work on it, but I wanted much bolder colour - the pencils didn't cut it.

The final drawing of natural objects was succesful in that the objects are pretty well represented - I tried as well as I could to get the tones and shapes right, as well as the sizes in relation to one another. I really wanted the objects to look right together, to look natural together as it were. With one exception, I think i managed this. The avocado was the most troublesome part of the composition. I wanted it to be an interesting drawing, and I knew I wanted to use mixed media, but I did not do enough preliminary studies for the avocado itself so it ended up looking strange and sloppy next to the other objects. I don't think it looks like it belongs in the drawing. It also should have been closer to the driftwood, like it had been in all my studies - at some point it was moved by accident. So this is one thing I would change in terms of compositional changes, but also I would like to have seen less background space and perhaps zoomed in on the objects so that the driftwood goes off the page. I really like the frottage effect of the leather, and I really enjoyed trying to make so much mixed media work together. Overall, I am reasonably happy with the final piece.