Friday 30 December 2016

Christmas Break Sketches ( Lesson 11 & 12 Homework)

PART 1

Over the Christmas break, we were given the task of drawing skylines, cityscapes and paronamas in two different locations. I chose to draw at Worcester and also draw from home in South Wales.



I like the roughness of the drawings, such as the castles. I used pen to draw these and since they were old, I had to be a little careless with the pen and not use straight lines all the time. I should have used this in the tea background drawing as I feel that the lines are too precise but the overall result was pleasing.




I used mostly wet media for these drawings. Using only two colours was tricky at some points but it was interesting to attempt. My favourite result is the Millennium stadium as I had used two shades of blue but I added salt to create a cloud like effect on the sky. The John Lewis building, I feel, didn't work that well in pen but I wanted to experiment with it to see the results.  





These two buildings are my examples of a skyline and paronama. I used pen on the top one, which is a skyline of Cardiff centre as I felt that I could bring out the small details on the buildings more. With the church building in my home area, I used pencil as it can bring out the eeriness of the church as I believe that they can be quite scary, especially at night.  




Since these buildings were mostly very old, I used tea bags to add the colour to the drawings, which make them look very rustic. I've focused more on the old architecture here and I've used Cardiff to represent the more modern architecture. I am pleased with the outcome with the painted building as the pink and purple work very well together.  





Charcoal can also help amplify a building's creepiness which is why I used it on the Bryngarw building in the top left corner. With one next to it, I used the charcoal to show the atmosphere and the time of day, along with the red and orange. My favourite piece here is my old school building, which is on the bottom right. The purple and grey work well here as the show the tone of the building. I am improving with water colour blending and it is something I still wish to get better at. 


PART 2


This is located in Bryngarw park and this my representation of FRIGHTENING. I used pencil to create the shadows and to make it look more chilling in its appearance. Next time for improvement, I could use charcoal or paint and zoom in on the door a bit more. 





This is located in Aberkenfig, and this is my representation of TRANSCENDENT. I believe that a church represents above the range of normal or physical human experience so that's why I chose to draw the symbol of the church itself. I used water colour pencils in order to create a wash out effect so it represents something heavenly.










This is located in Cowbridge and this is my representation of FEVERED. This usually means displaying an excessive degree of nervous excitement, agitation, or energy but rather than a person, I chose a building that was busy due to what was on the walls. All of the ivy makes the building look extremely busy, frenzy and hectic. I used thin pen and pencil to show the vines and to show the dirtiness of the window. 






This is located in the Bridgend Industrial Estate and this is my representation of EROTIC. It was tricky for me to find a building for this particular representation but I eventually did find one as this to me, represents a male genitalia due to the shape of it. I only used charcoal for this as I want to improve with the material as well as my new use of chalk.  




This is located in Bridgend and this is my representation of MUFFLED. I found this interesting as I feel like the construction sheet on the building is actually obstructing it. The use of chalk and charcoal enabled me to show how the sheet look in the wind as well as the shadows. 









This is the Police Station in Aberkenfig and is my representation of PASSIVE. I used acrylic, charcoal and chalk here, which turned out very well as it shows how grimy and dark it is. I think that it represents passive because there isn't really any hope once someone is behind bars and I think that the window represents someone accepting or allowing what happens without active response or resistance.




Douglas Huebler Location Piece, July 1969


Artist's book in the form of a series of 16 photographs, two maps, text page and printed envelope documenting a mapping piece by Douglas Huebler that took place in New York City, and Seattle, Washington. Originally published as part of the "Artists & Photographs" portfolio. "In New York and Seattle an area was arbitrarily selected within which a person in each city photographed places that he, or she, felt could be characterized as being (1) "frightening" (2) "erotic" (3) "transcendent" (4) "passive" (5) "fevered" and (6) "muffled." Within each area each person made two entirely different sets of six photographs after which all four sets were sent to a third person (the artist) with no information that would make it possible to ken any one of the photographs with any one of the words originally specified. The four sets (24 photographs) were then scrambled altogether and 12 of these arbitrarily selected for this piece; to those were added 4 photographs that had not been made to characterize any kind of place. 16 photographs, a Xerox map of New York and another of Seattle join with this statement to constitute the form of this piece." -- Douglas Huebler, July, 1969.



Monday 5 December 2016

05/12/16 - Lesson 10

This was our submission date for all of our work. Although I had finished my work as I was up to date, I was feeling incredibly nervous as I believed that I wouldn't pass due to my drawings, so I had hoped that my blog and essay would help me in marks. However, we were told that no one had failed in the class which relieved me but I do hope that I achieved a C or a B. Of course, an A would be lovely but it is only early. I am pleased with what I have achieved so far.

Sunday 4 December 2016

ESSAY DRAFT 3#

Over the past few weeks, I have had both positive and negative attitudes towards the various techniques required to draw the life model. I enjoyed using certain materials like water-colour paints and coloured pencils, since it was something I knew I could do well with; but when using materials like charcoal, it didn’t always end in the result I wanted. I found this quite frustrating. Getting the body proportions to be accurate on my model drawing was also a challenge for me; mostly because of the body posing, and especially with the legs and arms.

After looking at Erik Gist’s work, of life model drawings with charcoal, I can see the attention to each joint on the body which I really like as it defines each body part (Website: Watts Atelier of the Arts: Watts Atelier, 25/10/13).  This is one of his works; a 20 minute figure drawing. The body qualities are really defined in the darker areas, and the shadows are evident which gives the model a background, rather than just levitating on a piece of paper. When I give tone to my work, it does turn out very well but I want to make it more realistic. However, my drawings are too small so I can’t use my charcoal to shade in specific details. What I also like about his work is that he can get the proportions incredibly accurate which at the moment I have trouble achieving, but only with the legs as they are smaller than the rest of the body.

I am going to solve this by doing practice drawings of legs in my sketchbooks and using my friends and myself as leg models. I also need to work on how I shade in certain parts of the body that have shadows as I can sometimes shade too hard and too much which can result in my drawing to become messy and flat. If I could have handled my proportions from different angles like Gist has done here, my pieces would improve so much with whatever material I use, especially with charcoal.             
                                                
Frida Kahlo, who was well known for her self-portraits, is one of my favourite artists because of how well she observed herself when painting. I really like how she captures every detail on her face, but what I really find interesting about her work is that she often painted herself in backgrounds with objects that were considered surreal. For example, this is one of her most famous pieces, known as ‘The Hummingbird,’ which was considered to be an example of surrealism among the critics (Website: Mental_Floss- Kirsty Puchko, 01/06/15). However, she claimed that she was only her own ‘reality’, where she felt most comfortable. Since my portraits of models don’t have any background to them, I feel it would be good for me to experiment by putting a model in a background or give them an item to represent something about them. I have done some of my models with two sets of water-colours, which I feel represents the darkness and lightness of the model’s position. Having a background based on surrealism would be an interesting theme for my model drawings. My water-colour portraits are probably my best ones as I can blend in the colours extremely well and really define the different types of shading on the body with it. Both of my pink and purple have worked very well here for the light and shadows but if I would have used Kahlo’s ‘reality’ background for the model, I feel it would have looked so much better.

Vincent Van Gogh’s work also stands out to me because of his style of painting as it really looks mysterious and could have many story lines entwined into it. Although he doesn’t do as many self-portraits as Kahlo and Gist, he does do wonderful landscapes. My favourite piece of his work is ‘Starry Night’ (Website: VanGoughGallery, Unidev, 2002-2015). I love it because of the way he has used his paints as the strokes are quite long and because of the way they bend across the sky, it really looks enchanting. As far as paint goes, I have only used it to blend colours together rather than define each stroke individually to form a picture. I would very much like to use this style in my own work rather than just stick to one way of using paint since it will give my work greater depth and different variety of techniques. I feel that this would make a detailed and unique style for a background for a model and it’s the same with Kahlo’s ‘reality’ backgrounds.  I think that the biggest mistake with my portraits is that they are all too organised and basic. I feel as if I need to be more care-free and relaxed with how I draw and paint, rather than feel anxious with getting everything perfect in the first attempt. That means that I have to go bigger with the model’s size and include more for the background, whether it be tonal work or an actual landscape. This could also be something that I could practise with by using the university campus as a background since the fallen leaves create a beautiful atmosphere and landscape with their vibrant colours. As is evident with my work here, I attempted to give a coloured shadow to the model. This did not turn out the way I wanted to as it just looked like the colours had just formed too much with the water and just turned into a messy puddle. The colours have blended well on the model but I feel it doesn’t show the shadows or light at all. This is why I think Gough’s style of painting would work much better on the model as each stroke of paint would define the model more to look more realistic with light and shadows too.

During the next semester, I would definitely like to improve in drawing accurate body proportions and using my materials differently each time, like just blending and using paints like Gough has. I hope to progress more smoothly with drawing models next year as I have some experience in drawing them now.

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