PART 5: OBSERVATION IN NATURE: Research Point: Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is a household name for anyone who has an appreciation for beautiful design. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art and became successful in his endeavours right from the beginning, frequently winning awards and competitions. It's probably safe to say his architecture and furniture designs are the most well known - the familiar straight lines accompanied by pretty rounded roses here and there - but he had to start somewhere and it was with his brilliant ability to draw and paint that kicked started his career.

Beautiful and delicate, his simple line drawings with watercolour were a major indicator of how far Mackintosh could go with his work. No fussing over any unnecessary detail, he focused on the line, the shape and colours, the overall design of his subject.

Mackintosh used his ability to draw in this unique way to design and make an abundance of gems in the architecture, textile and interior design fields - and was incredibly successful throughout his career.

PART 5: OBSERVATION IN NATURE: Exercise: Line Drawing

I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise, as I thought I might. I remember doing it at Bristol UWE when I did my foundation course but we had to draw the person opposite, with hilarious results. It certainly worked at loosening me up and helped me become familiar with my subject in a totally different way to what I am used to. You have to really trust your eyes and observational skill. Looking down even once feels like you're cheating! It gets easier the more you practice, as with all things.

One thing I noticed was that because of my subject - the skull - the drawings started to take on something that reminded me of illustrator Ralph Steadman, who's work I have always admired for being so grotesque and sinister, and often with a humourous or at least satirical quality. Below is his illustration for the Weekend Magazine, "I wouldn't be seen dead in a seal fur coat".

Something about the scruffy ink and macabre subject of my drawings made me think of Steadman and look back at some of his work. His drawings seem to me like a snapshot of some horrible thought or image in his head he might have had, one like any of us might have but we brush away and force it out of our minds - but he just turns those horrible thoughts into works or art. Brilliant I think.

After this exercise I began basically messing about a bit (or experimenting if you like) and moved out of my sketchbook and onto large paper, which in the most part I covered with a colour wash. I did a drawing in the style of Steadman, and then decided I'd try something I'd never tried before - mixing acrylic paint and PVA and literally squeezing or dripping onto the paper. It was good fun but also produced some interesting line drawings too, some of them retaining the grotesque label associated with the skull, and some ending up simply looking more abstract and almost jolly... It's pretty tricky to direct where your line goes, and can sometimes end quite disastrously but almost always ended up being at the very least a decent representation of a skull, and at the most, being an exciting, decorative and fun drawing.



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.

PART 5: OBSERVATION IN NATURE

I chose to go back to observation in nature for my final assignment. I really want to discover and develop what interests me about certain natural objects - what exactly is it about them that interests me and where can I take this? I have a small collection of animal skulls and bones that I've been looking at and I'm hoping to create some interesting work with them. For as long as I can remember I've had a slightly morbid fascination for dead things but particularly the bones that they leave behind. Bones, and skulls especially carry a lot of significance - death and mortality, but also if you want to look on the brighter side, a connection or unity between all natural things.

For the first exercise, 'Draw and Select', I started by drawing some objects I hadn't drawn in the previous natural observation assignment. I was particularly interested in the shapes of the large sheep's skull, but also found drawing the pine cones and decaying leaves a real pleasure to draw too. The fragility of the leaves went well together with water soluble pencil and watercolour paint, and the repetitive patterned pine cones were replicated, I think, most successfully with ball point pen. I also drew a collection of snail shells that a friend picked up for me from a beach in Cornwall - such a huge variety of colour and pattern in objects so small, the sort of thing people would walk right passed without even looking twice. Luckily my friend knew I'd be interested in them.

What struck me whilst doing these drawings (particularly with the skulls and bones and the maple leaf) was that I really enjoyed doing the quick sketchy observations. I think in the past I've had a tendency to spend hours on the same drawing, painstakingly attempting to get all the detail precise and meanwhile losing interest in the object and forgetting the point of the drawing in the first place. I really want to escape from this trap. I'm beginning to understand that it isn't a direct imitation of an object that makes a good drawing, however precise it may be - it's the essence of the object that's important, and it's finding a personal meaning or point behind it that makes a good drawing.

There's a lot of routes down which I can take these first drawings - more studies of the changing Autumnal leaves, some decorative studies of snail shell pattern, more intricate studies of pine cones, etc - but by far the most interesting objects in my collection is the skulls, and what an object to begin a project with! I'm really looking forward to the Line Drawing project ahead because I think this will help me loosen up and become more experimental.

Really interesting stuff... (click on me)

I found this article about the Art by Offenders show on the We Are OCA website  - I'm going to try and get to the exhibition next month when I'm in London. It should be really interesting... And maybe it will plant some interesting thoughts/discussion about Art Therapy (which is what I'd like to study once I've got my degree).

ASSIGNMENT 4

1; Line and shape

I chose myself as a model - I have to say that I think finding a friend or family member happy to pose for such a lengthy amount of time (2 hours just for the final drawing, not including breaks!) is a bit unlikely and if they do agree, a bit cruel - but fortunately I am always readily available. Although, I did come across some practical difficulties using myself as a model, like not being able to measure myself to get proportions accurate while looking at myself in the mirror, and my arm getting in the way of seeing myself while trying to do so!

I really wanted to make this drawing personal - I was drawing me after all. A lot of the self portraits I looked at by other artists really inspired me - particularly the kind invoking a feeling of our mortality, or where the artist has involved something of importance to them in the background. I allowed myself to indulge a bit in memories of recent life-changing misfortunes and tried to somehow incorporate these emotions into my drawing. To me, I think it worked, but if you merely looked at the drawing without knowing me and what it was about, then I think you might believe it's a bit dull. And that's not to say there's not enough to it - in fact I think it may be a tad overworked, mainly because of the torn paper surface - is it a bit distracting? The idea behind the drawing was being watched over by my Dad, being kept in check in a way whilst I work at being 'creative'. There's something quite sad in my expression, which makes sense but I admit was not a conscious thing, it just ended up looking like that when I stepped back from the drawing.

The pose looks a bit awkward, and it bloody well was in all honesty after sitting there for several hours. Sadly I had to cut off the lower part of the drawing, partly because I made a mess of my toes, but also it looked too busy with my foot and all those stool legs so in a way I was happy to see it go. However, I do think the composition could have done with something... despite all the preliminary sketches. It was a bit tricky getting the painting on the wall and myself in the mirror at the same time. And also should I have painted the wall behind a different colour wash to make it look more distant?

2; Tone

Again, I used myself as a model. I began by thinking about ways in which I'd never seen myself, or personality traits that aren't naturally linked to me.  Started thinking along the lines of vulnerable and meek, or sexually overt, strongly opinionated and vocal, etc, but then thought quite simply that I'd never actually seen myself asleep! I took some photos of me on my bed, with a direct light source, so lots of light and shadow. I took many and changed the pose every time. The most interesting pose and the one I chose to expand on was one where I am clutching my feet but because of the large amount of shadow, all you can really see is me as a triangular shape, almost curled up but not quite.

I did some preliminary sketches and thought only about my form and how the differing tones shape me in the photo. I didn't delve too far into any meaning behind the drawing this time, I just wanted an interesting drawing with plentiful tonal values.

I really liked the way parts of my body are out of shot, it keeps the composition simple. In the end I chose two colours (yellow ocre and burnt umber - I wanted to keep the almost golden tones captured in the photo)) and used acrylic paint. I mixed the yellow ocre with some white to make the lighter tones, and mixed the yellow with the burnt umber for the darker.

I think it's a more succesful drawing/painting than the line and form drawing which I think I inadvertently overcomplicated. There's definitely something about keeping it simple sometimes.

PART FOUR: DRAWING FIGURES: Project:The moving figure

I've been working on the moving figure project here and there throughout Part 4 - there have been good days and bad. My local park is a good source for people, it being a popular park and also thankfully the summer holidays at the moment but saying that, children are really hard to draw because they just don't stop! I took my little sketchbook to WOMAD festival and managed a few quick sketches there - lots of interesting people to watch, much stiller than children in the park, and crowds gathered together becoming a mass as opposed to individuals. I tried to draw from people off the TV one morning but had trouble with that - I think not being able to see their body as a whole moving this way and that made it quite tricky to make a decent imitation of their movements. Cafes are good places to draw I found - people sat at tables chatting away or walking by in their own worlds.

The main challenge in drawing people as they move so swiftly is trying to gain an idea of their actions and gestures in as few strokes as possible. In some drawings I managed this well, in others not so well. I did quite a few drawings of people on or pushing their bicycles, and just indicating the bike itself by drawing the round shape of a wheel helped to indicate what the individual was doing. I'm always tempted to introduce more elements into these drawings, as opposed to keeping it simple with a few descriptive lines, and this can be a problem with such little time. I always found that I'd start with the person's top half of the body, usually the head, and by the time I'd got to their legs or feet, they'd moved on, walked past or the angle had completely changed, so this produced some pretty hilarious looking legs! Or no legs at all. I seem to want to encapsulate something about that person, not just the movement they're making, for example the way they hang their head, their glasses or the fact they're rummaging around in their bag, or on the phone. Catching the moment is clearly something that is important to me, and focusing on that helps to explain the narrative. It's a fun past time even if it doesn't produce any amazing drawings.