Detailed observation

I collected a number of different items from the garden, most of which I couldn't even name (my New Zealand flora and fauna knowledge is not up to scratch). Some leafy or needly branches, nasturtium leaves, flowers, a weird seed pod type of thing, and some other bits and bobs. I also ventured into the fridge and grabbed some vegetables and fruit. I've gained quite a lot of shells from New Zealand beaches so those were an obvious choice because of their variety, and of course driftwood too.

Exercise: Line drawing detail

I chose to slice a chilli in half, lengthways for this drawing - possible influence from the student drawing of half a pepper below the brief? I quite like the simplicity of drawing purely in line, and trying not to take the pen off the paper makes it more challenging. The result is a slightly pop art-esque version of a not very detailed and therefore actually quite abstract chilli. The negative space looks equal to the positive, because the only thing in between is a fine line? Anyway, I like.

Exercise: Getting tone and depth in detail

This one took forever - I was just having a bad day, but I struggled on with it to the bitter end. Wasn't particularly happy with the result (unsurprisingly) but the method of slowly building up the tones was really great. I'm not usually totally aware of my method of getting the tones down while I draw, I just sort of get on with it, which is an embarrassing admittal but true. So it was useful to be conscious of exactly what I was doing and why, right from the start. The cast shadow looks weak and I didn't put anything in the background so the shell sort of hovers on the page - obviously I didn't put much thought into the composition, I was too busy with my tonal building! I think one thing I did manage was to create some texture - the shell looks kind of rough, as it actually was. Using a variety of pencils alone can obviously do wonders for creating a textured effect.

Exercise: Stipples and dots

I chose the weird seed pod thingy that I pulled off some sort of pine tree in the garden. It's not like anything I've seen before and it has a very unusual texture and a pleasing shape - I knew it was going to be a challenge but I was open to it. I decided on black ball point pen because I know from fiddling about with all the mediums that it is a great tool for stippling and getting those fine patterns. I really enjoyed getting my head down and focusing on that detail - could have used a magnifying glass in retrospect, that would have been really handy. It was quite a difficult object to draw and I lost it in a couple of areas, but was relatively pleased with the result. However, the cast shadow again is very weak, I have no idea why I seem to have developed a problem with depicting the cast shadow when it is such an integral part of making an object look as it looks - I wouldn't even have noticed if Emma hadn't pointed it out in my report. Definitely something I need to focus on next time.