PART 5: OBSERVATION IN NATURE: Exercise: Different angles

I drew the sheep skull from 4 different angles while it sat on a slab of slate (my boyfriend aquires bits and bobs through his work, quite handily for me!). I used a range of pencils and 2 differing types of paper - later learning that sugar paper is not a great surface for drawing on with pencil because it rubs off easily and is actually just quite difficult to see... I focused mainly on the varying tones on the skull and only really noticed afterwards that this skull has so many interesting shapes to it with just a slight alteration to its angle. From some viewpoints and once drawn onto paper in 2D, it's almost unrecognisable as a skull - perhaps an advantage for a more abstract direction but not so great if you want the viewer to understand what it is you are drawing. I suppose what struck me most during this exercise is how grotesque this skull is - and I know it is only grotesque by association, because I know it belonged to a living animal that died, then decomposed and left behind this only remnant of its life. But even so, the teeth and the hollow of the eye socket is macabre. The image of a skull is macabre and there's no escaping it. Or is there? I guess I'll find out.