Reworking Assignment 2

I was advised to rework the assignment - trying out a larger range of compositions
- thinking about the effect of the relative size of the image within the background
- trying out different ways of drawing water

What was I thinking the drawing should be about?
'what I kept coming back to was the lovely photo of a duck with her ducklings on a , and the difference between what a duck looks like and the strange distortion that I see in my mind's eye.'

How could changing the composition make this contrast clearer?

Drawing 1: Assignment 2 feedback

Tutor report

Student name	Christina Rogers	Student number	510830
Course/Module	Drawing 1	Assignment number	2

Overall Comments

Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Textiles Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you have the potential to succeed at assessment.  In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there are certain areas you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback.    

You have submitted a good quantity of work for the second assignment. You have attempted to use some colour throughout the projects and experimented with a variety of surfaces.

I can see that you have attempted to work with thumbnail sketches for your composition, you should continue to develop this further and aim to really experiment with the arrangement of objects. Keep your pencil sharpened to assist you in clearer lines to contrast with softer marks and tones. For example, when drawing the snail shells it would have helped you to describe the three-dimensional form if you had used a range of grades of pencil to give you a range of tones to work with from the lightest to darkest grey. Using directional marks, which follow the form of the object, will also help you to have more success at creating the illusion of a three-dimensional form as the examples below:

You mention in your Learning Log that the texture/surface detail of the object makes it more difficult to suggest the form with shading. Alongside the use of a range of tones you often have to simplify the detail in order to emphasise the form. As you have discovered using shadow and highlights can help to define the form so create a strong directional light source when setting up your still life compositions to help promote this.

When experimenting with texture as well as varying the mark, think about varying the pressure and angle of the media, this will help to extend your vocabulary of marks.

You have experimented with the use of colour for your Project 3 work and you have considered the texture of the objects to some degree. The issue you need to work on is keeping the form whilst you do this. Unfortunately this has become a little lost and the objects are beginning to merge together, creating more pattern than form. It may well be that this starts to inform your textile work, certainly that is what is hoped for. However, at this stage it is also important to develop the skills to capture the form. Remember that there is a difference in how we perceive colour so that it is possible to use this to create the illusion of form:

As you have indicated throughout your Learning Log, some work needs to be done to ensure that the backgrounds within your drawings are as considered as the foregrounds. Much of this can be resolved at the thumbnail stage, by trying out different placement of the objects in relation also to what appears in the background. Whilst you have tried different arrangements and viewpoints you could develop this further by zooming in close to the objects and focusing purely on their relationship to each other or zooming out and including something of the environment they are sited in. It is possible to use a textured and toned background rather than drawing the environment. However, this needs to be really distinct from the objects otherwise, as you have discovered, they begin to merge.

Although you haven’t sent them through, the mixed media drawings have real interest to them. It would be worth bringing some of the elements you have used into your other work: newsprint, strong tones etc. The contrast that you are achieving in the photographic images of your work needs to be brought into the actual drawings: ‘monochrome musical instruments’ for example. The strong contrasting tones of yellow and red work well to describe the form and add interest to the drawing, which is not apparent in the original. Use this to select the colour and tones you are going to work with.

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

The thoughts behind your selection for the assignment are interesting and evidence an ability to think things through conceptually and be creative in your response to the tasks. The combining of reality, impression, death, life etc. are concepts which you could easily develop throughout your projects.

There are some issues with the final piece, which are related to some of the things I have addressed in the overall feedback. The composition needed much more experimentation before you embarked on the final work. You don’t have to stay true to the original photograph you used. As it is there is a large amount of background without much going on in it. This could have worked if the ducks and skeleton had sufficient detail to provide focal interest and contrast. If you were trying to make reference to the endless cycle of life through the vastness of the water, it would have been better to work on a portrait format with the ducks occupying a small section at the bottom of the composition. The positioning of the objects, as much as the objects themselves, can give rise to a range of narratives so it is important to consider this if you are going to work in this way, i.e. more conceptually.

You also need to be careful of the order in which you apply the media. The background appears to be drawn over the top of the ducks, distorting their shape and making them merge into the background. As with comments previously, you needed to use a range of tones in order to describe the form of the ducks. The course is designed to develop your observational skills alongside your creativity so it is important to demonstrate this within your work. I don’t want you to lose your lively, free approach to drawing. However, there needs to be a balance between, lively mark-making and accurately observed more controlled line and form. Concentrate on trying to develop this in the next part of the course.

I would suggest that you attempt to develop this assignment piece. Create several compositional drawings and see how this changes the narrative the work is creating. If you decide to work with vast expanses of water, observe how water appears and try to capture this. Reflect on how you would approach the texture of the water and ducks if you were creating a textile and try this approach to your drawings.

I know you have stepped out of your ‘comfort zone’ whilst undertaking the course and that necessitates pushing yourself to experiment and holding your nerve until the work starts to come together – it will if you continue to work and reflect on what you have produced.

Sketchbooks

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

It is good to hear that you are beginning to use your sketchbook in a manner that is more appropriate to you specifically. As you have suggested the course should help you to develop skills that will allow you to work in your own particular way. It is not enough to be skillful; your work needs to be distinctive if you are to develop as a practitioner. It is important that your drawing and textile practice begins to come together so that each is feeding the other. However, it is early days in the course so it is something to be aware of and work towards.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

There is some evidence of reflection on the work you are producing in regards to the process and techniques you are developing. Think about the context of the images you are researching and referencing. The mallard duck illustrations for example: how might the context in which this was intended for viewing affect the choice of media and composition compared to the context you are working in? Good selection of artists referred to in your still life section. Remember to include critical reflection on the work as well as biographical details. Reflect on how the work of others is helping you to develop your thinking as well as comparing and contrasting the work of the artists you are researching. This will help you to develop your critical thinking.

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

Look at Vija Celman’s drawings of water:

David Hockney’s landscapes:

John Virtue’s cityscapes:

Pointers for the next assignment

Action points from feedback:

• Experiment further with the composition before embarking on the final piece
• Keep your pencils sharp and use a range of grades of pencil, which you can use to vary the mark, pressure and direction in order to successfully describe the form
• Use a strong directional light source and colour perception in order to emphasise the tones and assist your development of the form
• Rework your assignment after you have experimented further with composition
• Reflect on the context in which artists make work and how this affects the reading of their work
• Compare and contrast the work of others and reflect on how this influences your own work

Tutor name	Deborah Harty
Date	4/10/15
Next assignment due	tbc

So, to get it straight in my head, what I need to do during this part of the course is:

For finished pieces: More composition sketches to prepare for piece - do this for assignment piece and draw it again.

For each sketch: Use more than one or two pencils, and sharpen them frequently  

and try out different pressures and directions with my marks to make the form.

For each sketch, and practice in sketchbook: Form needs to be more obvious than detail - directional light and colour changes (including cool and warm).

For research and reflecting on what I am doing: Reflect on how seeing artists work affects how I do mine.

Assignment Two

For this assignment I want to carry on exploring the possibilities of using the mallard skeleton. What is interesting to me is:
- the contrast between the idea of a duck that I have in my head vs. the actual complexity of a real duck.
- explore further how to use a darker background and lighter tones to bring out the structure of the object (and this difficulty I seem to have getting the whole range of tones into my drawings)
- I don't want it to be completely naturalistic - perhaps exploring the funny side of skeletons doing things?

But what I kept coming back to was the lovely photo of a duck with her ducklings on a , and the difference between what a duck looks like and the strange distortion that I see in my mind's eye.

I had a go at drawing one of the more extreme versions of 'mental duck':

Rubber duckie in a more accurate range of colours

Rubber ducky in Sharpie
Clearly far too naive, glossy, and
yellow to be an actual duckling.

Photograph by Charles J Sharp (see earlier in blog for website link)

It has great composition - are those ducklings on the golden section? - and the warm feelings you get when you see a mother and children. The water looks as though I could manage something like it in a drawing.



I tried it out using crayon, which was too scrappy and low intensity.

Using watercolour was more effective. This was a bit too deep and green, so would need more white and less yellow.

The marks I did initially underneath the watercolour to show the movement of the water did not work as wel as the ones I did afterwards (with crayon). My attempts to scratch the surface were not so effective in this case.

So, by this time I was wondering if I could use ducklings and skeleton together in this composition to illuminate my point about mental images and reality?

Sketch of my idea for final piece
Various titles came to mind, but as the point is about the differences,
my preferred title is Generation Gap

Planning:
I have decided on cream paper that can take watercolour and have a bit of texture but not too much. My intention at first was to use narrow masking tape round the outside to make it look like those Audobon type paintings, but on reflection that plan was in fact for one option of the previous exercise, and would not add to the meaning or appearance of this one.

I have already worked out which media I will to use - colour pencils for the skeleton; felt tip pens for the ducklings; watercolours and pencils for the water background.

The blue flash on the mallard would not be necessary as the water will be showing through between the bones.

My intention is that the yellow and red ducklings on the blue background are quite intense and attractive colour combination, and the skeleton bones and delicate tone detail only dawn on you later.

I haven't done anything with watercolour background like this before, but I'm hoping it will work OK.

First stage
It was helpful to have the phrase 'Spend time gradually building the drawing' to calm
my nerves at this point. I tried to emphasise the boniness of this, and the amount of empty
space, with the marks I used. I really like the way that, because it comes from a standing rather
than swimming duck, it seems to be craning forward a little in a slightly anxious way,
which will go well with the role of it as mother of rather too many little ones.
At this point I realised that where it touched the water would be different from in the photograph
I was adapting for this drawing. The colours and material I picked were intended to
give a feeling of age and dryness. You can just see where I lightly sketched in the ducklings
to make sure they would be in the right places.

Second Stage (sorry about the wire across the photo)
Drawing in the rubber ducklings. I tried to put the shadows where I thought they would be.
Doing this it seemed wrong to give them black felt pen eyes (they would stand out too much), so I went for brown instead. I tried to make some of them look in other directions so they would look more characterful. In retrospect I think having them all looking exactly the same might have been better. Anyway, After this I put in some of the reflection marks and looked at it as a whole in terms of composition. I found that I had put the ducklings too high up after all, so I would need to remove some of the bottom of the paper to compensate, and perhaps some from the sides too. 

Stage 3
It took me some practice to be able to make the right marks with the watercolour and brush (cobalt blue). This is ok but I'm sure it could be a lot better. And I made the heads of some of the ducklings green and/or different shapes where they overlapped. Anyway, it does give the impression of wavelets and the water going off into the distance, as I wanted. The shadows were a bit more difficult and I think not so effective, especially under the mother duck, and in the top righthand corner. I think, having looked at this photo, I will do a bit more work on them before sending my assignment to my tutor.

Assignment 2
Generation Gap
Coloured pencil, felt pen and watercolour

Reflection:
1. Development of technical and visual skills
Well, I don't think there can be any doubt that my skills in these areas have improved, but they're still in the adequate or limited boxes. Lots of work to be done, but I feel that I have made a good start on this.
I've just been reading lots of emails from other Drawing 1 students and there seems to be a groundswell of feeling that this assignment is a long and difficult one for many. I certainly found it a challenge at the beginning, but in retrospect I can see how much I have learned, and have perhaps an idea of some of the areas I could explore to learn more.
2. Quality of outcome

I think the quality of outcome varies a lot for me - partly due to ignorance of the effect of particular techniques before I do them, and partly because I'm still learning what is needed in preparation for a drawing (as opposed to a piece of textile work). I think I have presented the work for this part two quite coherently despite doing the exercises the wrong way round, and understand conceptual/ visual ideas ok.
3. Demonstration of Creativity
Well, I haven't always been so creative during this part of the course as I would normally expect myself to be. I find it much easier to be free and experiment visually when I am working out how to make a particular thing eg in my preparations for the assignment piece, for example, rather than in the exercise trying out different materials for its own sake (although of course that has been useful). As for a personal voice it seems a bit soon, considering how much I still have to learn and try out.
4.  Context
I guess I think I have done some research, some of which has informed what I have done myself. eg I found the research about animal drawings enlightening - that they are not always realistic (or even real animals), and often used metaphorically. Which freed me up to make a lighthearted but serious point with my duck skeleton.

Project 5 Exercise 4 using source material

Build on a found image of animal anatomy to make something more personal.

Images of skeletons I found that appealed...


Frogs

frog4foroxypg
This one is cute and has some movement to it

To webpage with this image
This one has character

Frog skeleton by hEyJudeStock

 Mallard duck and Pigeon

Smithsonian libraries
Mallard skeleton drawn by A.B Meyer 1879-97
This one looks dead

www.suggestkeyword.com
This one's posture is characteristic.
I can see it looking at something alertly.

skeleton_of_a_pigeon_by_hontor-d37vkk2 deviantart
This one looks a bit scared
I am interested in the feet.
Not sure what I could do with them though!

In the end I went for the duck skeleton, mostly because the posture of it seemed most duck-like, but also because it wasn't as clear as the others and knowing myself I thought that would make it easier for me to be inventive rather than just copying it.

I did some sketches to explore what was important and what direction I might go in for the drawing.

First, I did copy it, using dark paper and chalky crayons (because of my ongoing ideas about darkness), thinking about the shape, what makes it duck-shaped.
I tried to use white for the lightest parts, blue for medium, and red or tan when they came into the picture in real life. The background looked too dark once I'd done that, so I filled it in, and to an extent the negative spaces in the torso, with tan to take down the contrast a bit. 

I had made a mess of the feet, and in fact think that
they need a more sticky look to them, so I used
children's wax crayon for this sketch.

This one is about the striking contrast between the brown feathers and blue/green iridescent feathers which mark it as  a mallard in life. I wondered if I could somehow use that contrast to make the skeleton both an object of curiosity (like in a cabinet of curiosities), and remind us of how beautiful it was as a live bird.
I like the way this is going - although the intensity of the brown will have to be deeper, and I'll have to think about what paper to do it on to get the echos of sepia natural history drawings. Exactly where the blue bits should go, and what colour they are, is something I will have to think about before I do the drawing itself.

Some ideas of how to compose the final drawing.
There is something amusing about a skeleton behaving as if it were alive.
The one on the right was trying to emphasise how very double-curved the duck shape is - oddly but characteristically so. But I don't think that will work with the colouring idea.

I collected some relevant images:

An example of natural history drawings from Edwardian era, and what they looked like.

This one from a website called Surrender Dorothy. The numbers relate to the list of latin names at the bottom of the page of illustrations.Surrender Dorothy etsy site




And another whole page of birds from F E Wright Edwardian birds 1914 Natural History lithograph copyright Petitpouaillier 2009 Source of image

The backgrounds of both are coloured on cream paper, surrounded by a border of dark blue ink.

This one, by Carl Friedrich Dieker 1875 (Dieker_lagdbare_Riere_1093218.jpg) shows something of the colouring of mallards, and a naturalistic background, but on the same cream paper. I had forgotten that the male has a green head. And the colours are separated from the brown by strong stripes of white and black.

The Audubon print below has more accurate colouring, again on cream background, with copperplate labelling.  Anas platyrhynchos.

Plate 221 of the Birds of America J J Audubon
from http://www.audubon-art.com/Mallard_Ducks.htm

And finally, a real one, photograph by Charles J Sharp
This background is a more interesting colour than grasses, that reflects the flash on her wing.
Could I do a drawing of skeleton with flash on a watery background?
The colour of the bones and the colour of the shadows of wavelets could blend into each other...

I loved this photo, but I wasn't sure how I could get the skeleton in there and make it work. So, after some thought, I decided that I would go for the sepia idea, using the 'cabinet of curiosities' sketch as a basis for the composition. Because I wanted a medium that would allow me to get a reasonable amount of darkness in there, and mellowed with age, but also the ability to get quite a lot of detail into the skeleton, I chose the chalky pastels.

For the paper I wanted to make it quite large (as my drawings go anyway) with a long tall rectangular shape, so I cut an A3 piece of paper in half and stuck the pieces end to end. I thought this was OK (see Jerwood prize 2013) and would in fact work to make it look a bit more ancient. I used white paper with a bit of bite to take the colour better, and because my intention was to cover the whole of the surface.

To go on the other shelves of the cabinet, I chose two images which are bird related but a bit odd in context, because a skeleton with a flash of blue is a bit odd too.

When I was drawing the skeleton I was thinking about the sweep and shape of it, and how to show that it wasn't flat (by using tone). I used yellow for the brightest parts, to make them 'glow in the dark'. That was interesting because it meant that the white paper was not in fact the brightest part of the drawing. When drawing the background it was more about a/ the triangular shape and b/ suggesting wood markings. The background was imaginary which made it a bit more difficult to work out where the shadows should go etc.

Initially I made the background too light in tone and the duck and its detail were lost. So I darkened it, and increased the contrast between the parts of the background to make it more obviously three dimensional. I had to touch up the darker parts of the duck to work with this.

Cabinet of curiosities
Pastels on white cartridge paper

Colour and darkness

I have been exploring a range of colours that I am repeatedly drawn to - dark intense but comples colours - and the effect of combining them. Part of a general attraction I have for the darker (visually rather than metaphorically) images, or how colours are different in the dark. Exploring through pinterest, and my own photos. And some efforts in my sketchbook to reproduce the interesting ones.

Dark cars and reflections in them

Concrete, slate and oxidised metal etc

The shop window on the right isn't so dark, but has a lovely cool intensity to the colour.











Fashion (from Vogue Aug15)

A page from my fashion textiles sketchbook showing dark intense colour range

Foliage and flowers

How different backgrounds affect colour

Blackberries in red bowl
This photo shows the complexity of the shapes, but not of the colours. There are many more variations and tints in the blackberries in real life.

With a medium tone warmish background, the red is duller, and the berries darker looking.

The red parts of the berries also look duller.

With a pale grey background the red is less intense, and the berries look more interesting and detailed.

With a darker greenish greybackground with a bit of texture to it, the photo becomes all about that texture. The red is deeper and the berries more sunken into the dark. The red on the berries is more intense and detailed though.

With a graduated background, the red on the bright side is darker than on the dull side. The berries are again less interesting and the red parts of them are paler and duller.










I did some sketches to explore this a bit more...

This one started out with beige background as in the photo above, but looks much more harmonious and homely with grey.

The fig's cool moderately dark colours give it an atmosphere of mystery!

The conch shell in bright dark colours looks dramatic.

For all these sketches I felt the need to simplify the shapes more than usual, which was much better for showing their shapes. Perhaps I have been putting too much detail in too early.




Variations in exposure
Since I was exploring dark colours, thinking about how attractive I found images taken in the dark in theatre and restaurant - here are a few photos I took, stolen from my earlier learning blogs from OCA.

Also finding appealing some of the artists who use very dark backgrounds eg Odilon Redon and Seurat drawings. Why? Mystery, radiance, altered colours. The backgrounds are not black but more complex colours. (except possibly the bottom left picture)

Reminding me of

James McNeil Whistler 1865 Nocturne in black and gold
Museum of Art Wsshington
(copied from www.artnet.com)

I should do some studies of how particular colours change as there is less light. These photos all seem to be yellower...

I did this series of photos to explore this, and see which level of light works best in my eyes:

The answer is this last darkest one is most appealing to me. More drama and mystery. Makes you look at the detail more intensely too.

Try doing a sketch like the Seurat ones, but in softer colour than 'black' and 'white'?

This was my first attempt to do that. I picked the conch because I had found it so engaging when I drew it before, but I was rushing at it, using coloured pencils, which didn't turn out as dark as I had hoped. Also, as you can see I didn't concentrate enough on tone.

So for this one I tried using wax resist for the lightest areas, and brown pencil for the darker ones, which again didn't work!

I think I should have tried a wash of something like watercolour rather than pencil...

So for the last one I went for basic tones, in cool dark colours, as planned:

Better!
Both from the point of view of dark cool colours giving it a feel I like, and from the point of view of tone giving shape.