Project: Drawing fruit and vegetables in colour

Exercise: Using hatching to create tone

I hate saying this but I was pretty pleased with myself after this drawing - bleurgh! I think it's because I felt I had a bit of a breakthrough with capturing the changes in colour when it's reflected, for example, the red of the pepper being reflected in the courgette, and the blue from the skylight reflected onto the pepper. The pepper in particular has really reflective properties, unlike the dull, almost powdery surface of the beetroot which seemed to sap away a lot of distinguishing colour. Because of this it was really challenging to get the colour in the beetroot right. I tried really hard to create a good composition this time - something I feel I fail with a lot. I wanted the fruit and vegetables to more or less fill the page, with a little negative space to balance it. I also remembered that the cast shadows of the objects are extremely important for the balancing of the composition too. I enjoyed using the coloured ball point pens - perfect for hatching.

Exercise: Using markers or dip pens

I enjoyed this exercise because it felt experimental and a wee bit hazardous. Nothing went drastically wrong - I don't think - but overall it does look quite plain considering the bold colour and irreversible mediums used. The composition isn't great, I assume because I left almost half of the page white with negative space, which ordinarily perhaps would be fine if the subjects themselves weren't so contrasting to that blank white, but in this drawing it's way too much. It would be improved massively if it were cropped. In fact I may even draw some faint lines in over the drawing to show how it could look better... I think the mushrooms in particular work well - they almost look squishy, as in fact they are to touch. The colours in the plum are a bit over the top - I'm not sure a plum can really be that purple!

Exercise: Drawing using oil pastel

Because of the addition of a plate, there is actually little negative space left on this drawing - it looks fairly well balanced I think. I used pink sugar paper (the only colour I had left!) which I think may have been a bit of a mistake. The texture of it is perfect for oil pastels because it really clings to the rough surface but the pink creeps through in a lot of areas, particularly on the plate, and looks a little odd. Again, it really helped the drawing to focus on reflected light and what it does to the colour of the fruit and vegetables (I guess this would be the main thing I have learned throughout the project). The pepper for some reason is such a pleasing thing to draw - perhaps because it has so many planes or shapes to it, and is so reflective? I was happy with the plums mostly because they were slightly dusty looking and I thought this would be hard to replicate, but don't think I did too bad a job.

Project: Still life

Exercise: Still life group using line

I chose to draw a group of vegetables - a large beetroot, a pepper cut in half, a couple of carrots with their leafy stems still attached, some nasturium leaves and a tomato. The medium I chose was red drawing ink and dip pen, which looks quite intense and striking. I deliberately chose items that were inherently connected (by all being natural, edible forms) but wanted as much variety in shape as possible for more of a challenging and interesting result. I focused on the outlines of the vegetables to begin with and tried quite hard to draw with a continuous line, to keep the objects connected. Then I drew in the detail - the seeds inside the pepper, the veins on the leaves and the hair-like fibres poking out of the root vegetables. My impulse is always to shade in areas quite early on in a drawing, so it was actually quite difficult not to this time. When I stood back from the drawing initially it was hard to see what the objects were. It looked quite alien, and the bright red ink didn't help this much, but after more detail had gone into the work and I'd indicated areas of cast shadow using sweeping lines, the objects began to have more life in them. Drawing the background in simple horizontal lines also helped the composition hugely.

I felt it was a shame that only half the tomato was in view - the drawing looks as though it has been cut short and would look more whole and well balanced in my opinion if the rounded edge of the tomato could be seen. I also feel that there is an issue with depth in the drawing. Of course it's clear that some objects are in front or behind the other, but the drawing overall looks flat. Some of this will be down to the lack of tone and shadow, but I think it would have helped to have made some of the objects stand out further by using thicker line or darker patches to indicate their prominence in the group, or otherwise finer line and lighter patches to indicate their background status. The leaves look too solid - they don't look fragile enough. I think it was a mistake to have made the outlines of all the objects the same thickness - in hindsight, this is not a helpful way to show off the qualities of the singular objects themselves. I like the beetroot and the pepper, but the other objects are too strong in comparison when they should be less so.

Exercise: Still life group using tone

This time I chose a bowl of apples and half a lemon, a couple of shells and a banana. I sat the objects on some cardboard and a piece of fabric. I sat almost directly above the composition. I began with a brown pencil crayon, working in the darkest areas and ignored completely the outlines of the objects. What I noticed here was that unlike the line drawing the objects were already looking like fruit and shells, even at this early stage and just merely with their darkest areas indicated. I used green pencil for the midtones and yellow for the lightest. The fruit I think is fairly well represented, but I could have worked more on the shells, perhaps using some stippling and even leaving some areas blank to show where they are free of tone. I wonder now why the shadow of the bowl was only a midtone green colour and not a darker brown tone...

Research point: two contrasting styles

Picasso was quite a character by all accounts, and it certainly showed in his work. His drawing style was fairly free, or loose you might say - he did not constrain himself by messing around with exact proportions or shapes. Nor did he with tone or shadow. In fact it was this avoidance of the finer detail that gave his work an enormous amount of appeal. He wasn't trying to prove anything, other than that he could, and would, do as he pleased. And still come up with incredible, enviable results. Picasso's work was hugely expressive of his personality - bold, alive, different and a little but naughty.

Picasso would sketch the outlines of his subject and leave much of his page bare, but yet did not skrimp on the mood he was trying to express or the character of his subject. He had a simple but ballsy style, unlike a lot of great artists who tended to stick firm to the teachings of traditional drawing technique.

Unhappy at architecture college, M.C.Escher gave up his parents' dream and took on graphic design instead. And thank goodness he did. He shortly became an artist that grew extremely adept at his game. "I believe that producing pictures, as I do, is almost solely a question of wanting so very much to do it well." Unlike the free style of Picasso, Escher's style was almost impossibly accurate, not a single detail was forgotten. He used this amazing skill of observation to design his own bizarre and mind-boggling fantasies.

Clearly an intelligent mathematician as well as graphic designer; the proof is in the pudding. He created some 400 lithographs, woodcuts or engravings in his lifetime as well as thousands of drawings. I remember being dumbstruck as a child when I first came upon some of his work, but these famous images are the kind that do not in any way become any less awe-inspiring as you reach adulthood. The closer you look, the more amazed you are.

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.

PART TWO; Observation in nature

Exploring coloured media;

Oil pastels; You can be really expressive with oil pastels, they have a rich and vibrant quality, you can build layer upon layer, which means you can easily alter mistakes. The only downside to them really is that it's difficult to be very precise, intricate detail like fine lines or dots are hard to achieve.
Pen and ink; Also a very expressive medium, deep colour, is great for hatching, blends well, and can overlay a lot of other mediums well too. Can be messy at times (though that isn't necessarily a bad thing...) and a bit inconvenient in terms of carrying about with you.
Pen; I really like using pen to draw, particularly ball point. You can get such great line with it and the finest details. It's good for stippling, hatching and outlining - all in all probably one of the better mediums for detailed work. But it is a time consuming medium, covering large areas takes time.
Pencil crayon; Blends well, good for detail, a good tool for sketching ideas, and it doesn't make so bold a mark that you can't later change it. Good for indicating colour for preliminary studies but probably not a medium I would choose for a final piece, due to it's wishy-washy look, i.e. it's just not very bold.
Chalk pastels; Gives a lovely soft look, good for creating a natural effect, blends perfectly. Again, like oil pastels, just not very good for the finer details, too textured and soft to make a fine mark.

I have been enjoying mixing up my media and would like to go further down that road. I love the way pen and ink mixes with other mediums such as oil pastel - as we know oil and water don't mix but in this case it has an interesting relationship of slightly broken, shiny marks. I enjoy using oil pastel in general because of its vibrancy, and the fact that it's forgiving - you can go over an area time and again to get the colour right. But for detailed work, that involves lots of hatching for example, I like pen (ball point or fine liner). You can make it look scratchy and weak or deep and pronounced. It's reliable.

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.