Project 2 Basic Shapes and Fundamental Form

Exercise 1: Groups of Objects

I chose to draw a pile of books with a soft pencil case on top of them. It was in a dark room with a lamp to the right.  I liked the idea of drawing them with charcoal on a piece of crumpled old brown paper, so I did that.

I think using these materials gives a good idea of how neglected the pile of books feels to me. The books were my daughter's school books from last year and had not been touched since then, so looked neglected and dusty.  The crumples and folds on the brown paper are very interesting in themselves, but may detract from the understanding of the image. On the other hand, it makes it look monumental, like a huge pile of ancient stones.

Using charcoal makes it easy to reflect the big difference between the light and shadowed sides of the books. I am pleased with the way this worked, and with the thin lines which were all I could see of the pages. The effect was slightly marred by me smudging the dark side with my hand while I was trying to draw the pencil case on top. I didn't really manage to convey the relative softness, or even the actual shape of it here. Also the light behind the books was quite complicated which I think confuses this image a bit. 

The day after drawing that, I decided to try another arrangement of stiff and soft shapes in my sketchbook. I took more care to set it up so that the final picture would show the contrast of stiff shapes and soft ones more. As I was drawing it, it took a long time of working on it before it began to look like what I was seeing (about half an hour). The important things seemed to be the relationships between the different degrees of shadow. Once I had those about right, the whole thing started looking three dimensional. So better, in the sense of more understandable, but not so good from the atmosphere/ expressive point of view.

Exercise 2 Observing shadow using blocks of tone

Bowl and jug
Conte crayon
As I drew these shadows and reflections, it became more and more interesting and complex, and by the end of it I could see things that I didn't/ couldn't see at the beginning of the sketch. It was only in the middle that I thought a blue crayon might have been better for white china.

Exercise 3 Creating shadow using lines and marks

In this part of the exercise I made four different grades of tone for each one, using different materials - pencil, ink, felt tip and graphite pencil. I found it a little difficult to get them in the right place without drawing an outline first, at times, especially around the lid of the box. The most difficult one to get predictable variations in tone with was the felt pen. I was surprised at how the dots of ink turned out, and think I will try that again in future.

Quick loose line drawing using pencil to try creating shadows with line.
I was initally using quite long lines to define the shapes, but quickly realised that shorter ones are more effective sometimes, and allow more variation in tone, The most difficult parts were the handles of the cups, because the shadows are complicated there and any variation changes the shape the handle appears to be. Whereas less accuracy on the larger shapes seems to be less of a problem.

How difficult did you find it to distinguish between light from the primary light source and secondary reflected light?
I am having trouble with this question, seeing it written down like that in words. Looking at what I've drawn, I can remember deciding that the large white area on the inside of the bowl was the brightest, and should therefore be left mainly as the white paper. This, of course, and a small area of the lip of the bowl, are the areas most completely lit by the light source. Other, reflected areas are all shaded to one extent or another. Sometime reflections are very bright, though, and in those cases it may be necessary to rub out areas in order to show this.

How has awareness of tone affected your depiction of form?
I have become aware that using tone removes the need for outlines in most cases, and that this has the potential to completely change the way I approach drawing objects. However, it is going to take a while to get my head out of the habit of telling me that I have to draw lines. This is a sketch I did at the Imperial War Museum. I started out using outlines, and then reminded myself to use tone, and that made the image a bit more three-dimensional- looking. Better...but lots of practice required!

Flat tyre of an army truck
Imperial War Museum London

Another example of the difference using tone is making for me:


Because I signed up for this drawing course I have finally braved a life drawing class at my local pub, that has been on my to do list for 6 months.





On the left, my first 2 minute sketch using only line, and on the right, something a bit more tone-based. While I am quite pleased with both (I am at the stage where getting the proportions approximately right is a bit of a triumph), there is no question which woman looks more real and interesting.

Exercise 4: Shadows and reflected light 

For this exercise I used a large silver Christmas bauble on a white plate. As well as the light from the large window to my right, there were reflections of the room, and of me drawing, in the bauble.

After my conversation with my tutor, and because I wanted to make this one really big, I thought this might be a good exercise to try out drawing on fabric rather than paper, so I used some viscose lining fabric in a cream colour.

This is how it turned out:

Bauble on a plate
Charcoal and white conte crayon on viscose

When I got to the part where I wanted to erase the brightest areas, I couldn't because the cream was already a mid tone. So I used white crayon instead for the parts where the window was brightly reflected. I think that the part on the plate with the same sort of pattern of white was actually where the reflected light from the bauble hit the plate. Again, the detail seemed to develop over time, like a photograph.

There were some technical problems with using fabric. The first was that it needed to be pinned down, and even then it pulled sometimes when I tried to draw firmly. Also, the strokes of the charcoal show a bit more than they do on paper. And the folds and creases of course, add to the complexity in a way which is not so great in this instance. Despite all this, I was pleased with the the way the bauble looks clearly spherical, and the reflection strips on the neck and loop of it turned out very well. It kind of appeals to me that I can see myself in the bauble, too. The plate was not so successful, in part because the charcoal came off in lumps in parts of it, rather than the rather delicate even shading I was hoping for. Spray set seems to work on viscose too, without discolouring it or changing the 'handle' noticeably.

Egon Schiele: The Radical Nude, at the Courtauld Gallery

I went to this exhibition because I had been looking at Tracey Emin's loose and expressive drawings and she rated him as her favourite artist. And then I signed up for this drawing course and saw a poster for the exhibition in the same week. I think of the Courtauld Gallery in a certain way which made it seem a bit of a departure to show drawings like this but once I was there it was obviously in keeping, with the traditions of life drawing being taken off somewhere idiosyncratic by a rebellious spirit.

The building is of course very impressive on the Strand, with huge portico and curved elegant staircase and big solid wood doors. Inside the galleries the rooms are relatively small and enclosing. Lots of people, but I was able to see what I wanted. Two rooms seemed to have a lot in them, but somehow hung so that this did not cause problems. Most fairly small drawings on paper. Enough about the artist's life to be interesting but not too much.

Standing male nude
link to image

Art school drop-out and joined Kandinski's Der Blaue Reiter. Died young 28? and didn't draw much during national service in the first world war. Friend of a mime artist (possibly where some of the odd poses come from).

Egon Schiele 1912
Self-portrait with raised bare shoulder
Leopold Museum
Link to image

My notes, go like this:

Egon Schiele
Self-portrait from the back
Link to image

'deliberately awkward & expressive poses'


'Contraversial at the time, and still debated' - (some of my family looked askance when I said I was going to this exhibition, referring to the pornographic nature of some of his work.)

Colours - watercolour/gouache
Yellow ribs, red buttocks, green shadows
On brown paper
'the death beneath the skin'

Nude baby
'wriggling off the paper'
Drawn at the maternity ward
Link to image

Covering/ cropped face so form is detail of body and pose.





Diluted black gouache and pencil gives a ghastly air, vs. image of young girl with pigtails, shows the corruption of prostitution.

Seated nude girl with pigtails 1910
Link to image

'Sneering nude' Hat/skirt and facial expression give her character. Surrounding white chalk odd.

Sneering woman - Gertrude Schiele
Link to image

'I paint the light that emanates from all bodies' Schiele 1911 - in the context of one this means very much more blank than line.

Egon Schiele 1910
Self-portrait
Chalk and watercolour
Leopold Museum
Link to image

Nude self-portraits -e xpressive of anguish - grey, thin, emaciated, unnaturally twisted, referring to saints/ martyrs?

Some of these self-portraits suggest that he didn't like himself very much. More about the ugliness, or the posture.

Crouching nude in a green kerchief 1914 Gouache and pencil.
Drawn as if inevitable
Link to image
Unfortunately all the images of this piece that I can find online are cropped in one way or another, which doesn't show the unusual andn striking composition of this image of a woman sandwiched between blue and green. 

Standing nude in red jacket 1913
Focus drawn by red areas
Link to image

'Economy of line & colour' means that impact is focussed.

Nothing in the background. Rules go hang.




What I have learned from seeing this exhibition:
Something about how it doesn't have to look exactly how it looks - it's more important to give the feeling of what it's like to be me looking at it. I think I have been trying too hard to get the details right.

Colour can be important in lots of different ways - focus (right),  composition (crouching nude above) , detail or texture (self-portraits above).

Don't have to have any background!

People have lots of hang-ups attached to seeing naked bodies displayed in particular ways, me included.

Research Point: Contemporary art works with feeling

Julie Brixley-Williams
Untitled drawing from a daily series
from http://www.juliebrixley-williams.co.uk

Tracey Emin
Untitled 2008 White cube

Tracey Emin's drawings often have so much feeling associated with them. This one is sad and heavy somehow.

Unfortunately the example suggested on www.saatchiart.com was no longer there. 

I looked at the artists website and found this drawing which looks as though it was made with wire. This artist describes herself as a sculptor.

This image looks as if it might be a person bowed down through struggling - perhaps with tied feet?! 

Michael Lentz 2012
Nude no 3716
from www.saatchiart.com

I suspect that the expression referred to in the course work would be clearer when the drawing is not apparently representational

Nevertheless, the next drawing I found which was clearly expressing feeling was this one. I thought the way the black area was done gave it a bouncy, playful feel, that didn't seem to be due to the subject matter, or her facial expression on their own.

Presence and Absence X
Henri Kalama Akulez
Link to article

This painting is very well named. When I saw it I got the feeling of lots of jagged feelings irritating, but empty, with no content or purpose. It think this comes from the combination of the sharp strokes in the more focussed area, and the mustard yellow/white/blue colours.

Inner-face
Djochkoun Sami
Ink on paper
from www.saatchi.com/drawings/abstract/

This ink drawing has a very physical feel to it, of something pushing outwards, pressure, and hairy spikes. But despite this, there is something unthreatening about it. Perhaps because of the softness in the tones.

The drawing below is more menacing, to me anyway, with the sharper swirling lines and shapes in a much deeper perspective.

drawing
Dorota Jedzusik
from www.saatchi.com/drawings/abstract/

How might a drawing act as an emotional conduit between artist and viewer?

I suppose I think a drawing can be a non-verbal communication of an inner state, like the way you hold yourself, or how you move your hands and face while you talk.

It's natural to talk louder, gesticulate more sharply and deeply and use short hard words when you are passionate about what you are saying. The same has to be true of drawing - harder pressure, shorter sharper, or bigger deeper marks.

The drawings on this page show that different media can be used in different ways to express different feelings.

And of course what is drawn is going to have a major effect eg the position of a body has its own non-verbal message.


Is it the image, the medium or that act that brought the art work into being that makes it 'expressive or 'expressionist'?

I am assuming that the skill is being aware of how this works and using the image, medium and the way it is drawn together to express what you feel. I expect that different artists have different degrees of control over this, but that generally it can't be done by controlling all these things consciously. (I may learn otherwise during this course!) I can already say that some materials are easier for me to be expressive in, perhaps because they are the ones that don't allow the judging part of your brain to have too much control.

Project 1 Feeling and Expression

Exercise 1: Expressive Lines and Marks

ANGER 
Sharp, hard, messy, explosive, directional, personal, painful, hot, dark
Big paper = Big expression
Pressing hard, long sweeping lines
Different materials  led to expression of different styles and details of the feeling eg graphite pencil wasn't as dark as conte crayon so looked less intense, but ink allows a wider range of intensity than either.

CALM
Floaty, watery, quiet, smooth, breath, surface, stable, subtle
I found myself wanting to make some of the images even smoother so used my fingers to do this for the top right image. This one turned out to be representational, although I hadn't meant it to be. I think the calmest is the regular circles, if only because they are predictable. Top left is not really calm at all!

ANXIETY
Spikey, trembly uncertain, fading out, shrinking, self-critical, withdrawing, all pervading cracks.
 I thought the top right one was the most successful in conveying the feeling of anxiety. And it also reminds me a bit of the repetitive and sometimes enigmatic shapes in Klee landscapes.
The top left one is the kind of strung-out anxiety you feel when it goes on for so long that nothing else can get a foot hold in your head.
This was fun, which made it a bit tricky to keep feeling anxiety! 

JOY
Bubbly irrepressible fizzing, embracing, radiant, piercing, contagious
Well, this one really shows that I was having trouble getting into this particular mood state. I left it to the end, and then found that whatever I drew didn't quite express it. I think the springy one on the bottom left is the most joyful. I was feeling that kindergarten feeling again at that point. The bottom right one is more like a virus or seed and interesting but rather too disturbing and spikey to be joyful I think. 

Starting Drawing 1

Part One Feeling, Memory and Imagination

Warm Up Temporary Drawings

I read through the first stage of Drawing 1, got together my materials, and bought a couple of large sketchbooks. I have been using small ones, so that I could carry them in my bag at all times, and because I have been a bit nervous about 'wasting' large sheets of paper by doing a rubbish drawing. 

So the first, warm up exercise, of doing temporary drawings in various ways, was a great way to get me into a better, more joyful and experimental state. 

This is a short film of me drawing circles of green
washing up liquid in a sink full of water. The line I was drawing showed up as
a moving wave in the surface of the water. I found myself
flinging it widely and smoothly, enjoying the free movement
of my arm and feeling like I was in kindergarten again.

Initially I felt a little silly and embarrassed at what I was doing, but quickly felt more playful and had ideas about what else might be fun, without my usual concern about how useful it would be.

This is what it looked like on still camera.
The presence of the water made the washing up liquid
sink and disperse very quickly. I tried it with
warm water, which made lines of tiny bubbles, both in the
water and in the air above it. It was only later that
I realised I could have done this exercise without the water!

This is a temporary drawing I made with wet woollen yarn.

 Some of these drawings were more temporary than others.

The grass was long and wet, so dragging a broom along it
gave a paler trail, like the line behind an aeroplane. I tried
to capture this on video but it was awkward to do both at once.
Then I made drawings with dead leaves.

I was surprised by how important the rhythm of the movement (or lack of it) seemed to be when I was flinging my arm around. 

Deciding to sign up for OCA Drawing 1

I have done two textiles modules and the third HE4 module was for me a choice between painting and drawing. In fact, if I could have done introduction to sculpture I think I might have gone for that. But since it is not on the pathway for a Textile Art degree, I thought carefully about which course to choose next.

When I started with OCA two years ago, I didn't really expect there to be so much drawing. I suppose I thought the exploration aspect would be done more with fabrics and yarns than on paper. Over this time I have gradually learned the value (and relative speed) of working out the visual aspects of a piece on paper first. It gets the ideas out there, and lets me see in reality, rather than just in my mind's eye, what is possible, and what doesn't really work so well. It also allows me to be freer in what I try out, as drawing is not as restricted by the properties of textile materials and techniques. This is not to say that I haven't sometimes made something without putting pen to paper at all, just that there is more freedom and possibility when I do.

After thinking this, and deciding that learning more about drawing could only help my textiles, I read an article in Craft magazine which discusses the contribution of drawing to the work of makers. In it Kyra Cane (2014), a ceramicist and curator of an exhibition at Contemporary Applied Arts gallery in London, comments, 'The concentration required to make drawings builds a resource based on the experience of looking'.

This has been very true for me. Not only am I building a store of images to work from, and a thread of my inner interest to follow, but the act of drawing them has brought with it a change in the way I have seen the things I drew, which is intensely meaningful to me. How meaningful? Drawing brings me to a state where I am able to exclude other things, and see qualities of the thing I am drawing so they appear to be more real than the way I saw them before. It brings to my attention the illusions and assumptions I habitually carry around with me. At least on a good day.

I am hoping that doing this course will help me to have more good drawing days. And now that I have come to this point, I can see that this course is likely to make a more profound difference to the way I see things, and make things, than perhaps a sculpture module could at this point.

Refs:
Cane,K Sept/Oct 2014 Drawing Conclusions Crafts pub. Crafts Council

'Out of sight: Drawing in the Lives of Makers' was at Contemporary Applied Arts 89 Southwark Street in Sept-Oct 2014

On 27 Nov 2014, at 10:59, Christina Rogers <christina510830@oca-uk.com> wrote:

Hi I have just signed up for Drawing 1 and have been given your name as my

tutor. I have completed two level 1 textiles modules with a view to working my way to 

a textile art degree. 

I want to learn more about drawing because those two courses have shown me how important seeing is. 

I read an article in Craft Magazine about how drawing is naturally central to most makers process, and this seems 

to be true for me too. 

I have a lot to learn about how to do it better! I have done one day of life drawing 

and tried teaching myself with 'Drawing on the right side of the brain' and no other courses 

since school (I am 50 and work as a doctor). I don't know quite what else to say here other than I am hoping to learn how better to capture the things I find interesting in what I see. 

My previous limited experience also leads me to hope that my 'eye' will be more tuned in as well by the end of it. 

My one reservation at this point is that I am going to miss the feel and the 3 dimensions of working with textiles. We'll see!

My learning blog is at www.mytexturedworld.blogspot.com. At the moment I am waiting for a change in internet provide, so the initial blog entries about this course will have to wait until that's working. Not too long I hope. 

I see from a quick look at some websites that some of your work is very textured and three dimensional too! Looking forward to working with you,

Christina 510830

Reflection on Assignment 5

Can you see a clear line of progression from source material through to finished piece? Was there enough information in your source material to stimulate your imagination and sustain your enthusiam?

There is a clear line of progression from my source material of light in the darkness and my drawing of a slit in cork bark through to the finished piece. I did bring in some of my sketchbook work on roots and bark half-way through developing the finished piece, and while I was constructing the piece this aspect came more to the fore. This was not because there was no further interest in the source material, but more that the sources had less to say about what was surrounding the slits than what was within them.

I have some ideas about developing the light in the darkness idea further, for example a series of experiments with mixed yarns, and using light emitting wires, which shows that there was plenty of potential in the source material for me.

Do you feel you made the right choices and decisions when selecting at each stage of the project? If not, what would you change and how would it alter the outcome?

The main forks in the path were
1, Decision to go with the purple/yellow colour scheme, rather than the alternative. I think this was a good choice as it allowed me to pursue my interest in the dark light idea, and in fact I think it works well in my final piece
2. Using repeating pattern rather than single slit. This decision became more obviously the correct one once I had decided to make a glove, as it allowed an interesting rhythm to the outer layer, and variations in what 'shines through' the slits. My sketchbook drawings showed me that the size of the glove required smaller and repeating shapes to be in proportion with the size of the fingers. This led to my using the source images, and incidentally the roots images, on a smaller scale than I had initially anticipated. I think this worked well.
3. Choosing a fabric which was already in parallel folds. This supported the development of the roots/bark symbolism in the final piece, but also resulted in the fingers and thumb of the glove being less smooth-edged and elegant than I had initially intended. In context this is perhaps even an advantage, and it is not obvious to me how it could have been avoided, other than by not lining the fingers, with the consequential effect on the colours.
4. Choosing to make a glove rather than a mask or lampshade. I think that a glove does have the reference to identity of the person inside that I was aiming for, without the weight of contradictory symbolism that a mask might bring. The idea is not hiddenness but something interesting showing through. A lampshade might have been a good choice too, but I had some reservations about being restricted to non-flammable materials and other practical considerations. This would not necessarily stop me from making something of this sort in the future, but for this project it would not have been possible to address the identity issues that I thought were more important.

Which stage did you find the most exciting? Which stage was most arduous and difficult to get through?

For me the most exciting time is when I have decided what I am going to make. I love the adrenaline it gives me that means that everything else in my life has to go to the bottom of the to do list for a while. What my husband calls my 'sewing frenzy'. I have to slow myself down a bit at that point to stop myself from just diving in and making something from what I had in the house. Rather than being more thoughtful about using the best materials I can find for the purpose.

I found that the fixed structure of the stages in this last project was a little frustrating at times as my own natural way of working uses experimenting with textiles and then returning to the sketchbook in a more iterative way. I mean that I do some sketches, then go to textiles and other materials, then return to sketches, then feel the physicality of the materials again, several times, rather than the one or two cycles described in the stages. I was sometimes uncomfortable torn trying to stick to the 'rules', (and not always successful).

For me the most difficult period was after the feedback from my tutor about the last assignment. I found it difficult to disentangle my own motivation and creative direction from what I thought she would want me to be doing. And the result was that I did very little during the weeks afterwards. I am aware that this is because I only 'see' the things I could do better. I think that every time this happens I learn a bit better how to 'see' the positive bits of the feedback too.

Do you like your finished textile? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

I am pleased with the finished piece.

Initially the colour contrast and textures give it the light through the darkness feel I was looking for. The texture of the outer layer is pleasant, reflects the rhythm and organic regularity that appeals to me, but, perhaps because of the deep colour, it does not overwhelm the overall glove shape as I had feared it might.

It may be that the bark/roots aspect of this will lead some people looking at it to think of it as the 'arm' of a tree, rather than see the intended meaning. Making it life size was intended to refer to its representing a real person, but I could perhaps have tried out the effect of larger or smaller gloves. I'm not sure.

I am pleased with the texture and pattern of the underlying yellow parts. I think that if I made this again I would try to make the slits a little larger to allow more of the interesting complexity/regularity of this netting to show through to the surface.

Generally, I like the ideas/ symbolism that come with gloves, and I may well make more in future.

Experience of this course in general, referring to my initial hopes and expectations:

My initial hopes and expectations were as follows: 'When I was looking for a course I wanted one which would allow me to learn by experimenting...I have some themes at the back of a lot of things I make - femaleness, beauty and disgust, hidden secrets and transparency - I want to learn how to express these things in what I make'.

I have certainly done a lot of experimenting. Some of my experiments have been apparently dead ends but have turned out to influence what I do later (eg the roots). I like the way I have learned that this is more than tolerable, it's actually the process. This has been very freeing for me, as can be seen in my regular sketchbook practice during the research section of this course.  My experiments have led me to adapt techniques for my own purposes eg the knotted nets used in friendship bracelets, making visual illusions by printing computer images onto organza, and using PVA to mould coloured tissue paper, among many others.

Exploring ideas has brought me to expand my themes to include light and dark effects, and some gender issues, but also to find something of the common theme of all of these, which is about the way we can hide our own infinitely interesting light under a rather less flexible shell of our own making. I am certainly getting better at expressing this in objects, but of course there is still a way to go before my intention is clear to other people!