Drawing 1, Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Still Life - Check and Log

Do you think it is easier to suggest three dimensions on man-made or natural objects?

This project has taught me that it is easier to suggest three dimensions on man-made objects rather than natural objects. Man-made objects are usually made up of geometrical shapes such as cylinders, cones or cubes and so the lines of man-made objects are easier to draw and suggest their 3D form using most mediums. The irregular shapes of natural objects means that their three dimensional features are much more subtle with lines that are more difficult to depict and draw.

How did you create a sense of solidity in your composition?

In the exercise ‘Still Life Sketches of Made Objects’ I created a sense of solidity by using various hatching techniques and swapping between pencils of different hardness mainly B, HB and 2B, shadows and tone also played a big part in making the objects look solid.

Image 1: Exercise - Still Life of Made Objects

In the exercise 'Composition of Natural Objects' working with watercolor pencil I used hatching and layers of darker colour to show solidity.

Image 2: Exercise - Composition of Natural Objects

Do you think changing the arrangement of your composition makes a difference to the way you create a sense of form?
Changing the arrangement of the objects changed the way each objects interacted with each other, shadows and light reflected off one object to another and other objects in the composition (such as the plate in image 2) can play a major role in creating a sense of form.

How did you decide how to position yourself in relation to the objects?
For the second exercise I decided to position myself slightly above looking down at the objects so I could see the full form of the the objects and shadows interacting with each other in the middle of the composition, I thought this would help me to create a sense of form in my drawing. A bruised rib from a an accident the day before helped me to reinforce this decision.

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Drawing 1, Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Still Life - Composition of Natural Objects

The brief for this exercise was to 'Make a selection of natural objects for my composition, such as fruit or vegetables on a plate, and explore the different viewpoints by moving all the objects around in different arrangements and assessing which set up I like best. In my sketchbook, make quick sketches of each different set-up before moving the objects about again.'

I found making quick sketches of the natural objects a lot easier than making thumbnail sketches of 'made objects' in the previous exercise and started out with a good feeling that the exercise would go well. I chose vegetables for my composition which were a red yellow and green capsicum, a tomato and a carrot.

Thumbnail Sketches of Compositions of Natural Forms

I thought about the best place to position myself in relation to the objects and positioned myself slightly above. This was also more comfortable as I had bruised a rib after a fall during the Thai new year festivities (Songkran) a couple of days before, so I propped myself up with a couple of pillows, I couldn't complain though as it did give me a good view of all the vegetables.

The brief for the second part of the exercise was to 'Use the information collated in my sketchbook along with written notes from previous exercises to make an informed decision about the organisation of my still life drawing. This would help me to clear my mind and give a sense of order to my work.'

As always due to doing most of my work over different times of day and especially in the evening I worked with a bendy light as a light source, making sure it cast adequate light and shade onto the still life.

• Mediums used - Watercolor pencil, 2B, 4B, 8B, EE graphite pencil, charcoal, Conté pencil
• Paper - A3 Canson Watercolor pencil 190 gsm
• Time taken - 10+ hours

I wanted to get more practice with watercolor pencils and so I initially chose to do this exercise completely in watercolor pencil and so the only size sheets I had were A3 which I bought for the 'Supermarket Shop' exercise. However the problem was the composition I chose meant that I had to use the paper length ways but I wanted to get the whole of the plate into the finished drawing with the shadow that it cast and so I knew in advance it would leave a lot of negative space on the paper. Placing another folded sheet of paper under the composition helped me fill up the negative space and I decided that I would also use the TV unit in the background as the background.

I made a very poor first attempt at the still life completely in watercolor pencil, it set me back a good few hours and did not put me in the best of moods but did teach me some valuable lessons.

1. I did not have enough practice with this medium to get it perfect.
2. Blending colours with this medium was more difficult than I thought.
3. You can't erase watercolor pencil once it's in paint form and if you try there's a risk of ripping the paper!

I decided that my next attempt at this exercise would be a great chance to produce my first mix medium drawing and if I couldn't perfect the colour, shadow and light of the vegetables I would do my best  and then really make the composition stand out by the drawing everything else in graphite pencil.

On my first attempt at this exercise I started out sketching the dark parts of the vegetables in watercolor pencil first but on the second attempt I started with the lighter colours, although the second attempt was easier and looked better I have yet to perfect my technique.

When it to the lighter shadows in the drawing I took it very slow, using the pencil very lightly and holding it at the end and letting it almost dangle, only occasionally did I have to resort to blending with my finger. For the darker shadows on the plate I used 4B and 8B pencil.

All was going well until it came to the  background objects, my 7B, 8B and 9B pencil kept snapping so after an email to Derwent to complain about the quality of pencils in their 24 graphite pack I continued with an EE pencil. I found the EE pencil no replacement for the 9B pencil and was hard to produce different tones so I finished the background off in Conté pencil and charcoal.

Still Life Composition of Natural Objects

I was a bit disheartened at times after starting off so well, especially having discovered that I drew the composition in my second try on the the wrong side of the paper thinking they were the same. Luckily enough it turned out to my advantage as it was easier to draw in graphite and the paper did not warp as much when wet plus the colours seemed to be a lot brighter when they bled.

I was also a bit upset that I had to use more than two mediums in this drawing and found it frustrating when things kept breaking. The end result of the watercolor pencils is not what I had in mind but I thought the contrast between the colour and the graphite pencil was excellent.

Composition of Natural Forms - close up

The good news is Derwent did get back to me and admitted there was a problem with the old batch of graphic pencils and are sending me replacement 7B, 8B and 9B pencils.

View My Drawing 1 learning log here www.mydrawingcourse.com

Drawng 1, Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Still life, Still Life Sketches of Made Objects

The aim of this exercise was to create a small still life composition from a small themed selection of made objects, of which I chose personal hygiene as my theme and the objects that I chose were, a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, a Bic Razor and a bottle of mouthwash.

Then with a pen, pencil, or ballpoint use a technique such as hatching. I used a 3H and a HB pencil (to show the darker shadows).

Then I had to draw two or three thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook of different arrangements from different view points, using my light source to help create strong lights and dark shadows on the surfaces of the objects. I had to include tonal values to indicate form in my sketches as well as shadows seeing as they can also play an important part of a still life composition.

Then I was to make notes on or around my sketches about the technique I used and why I had used it. And make notes on anything else I felt was important.

I did two initial drawings that I have to admit were not exactly thumbnail size, I think this was down to miscalculating proportions of the first objects I started on in each composition and then having to keep up proportions,

First attempt at this exercise

In the first drawing I started on the toothpaste tube as I always end up working clockwise, I think this is force of habit. However, because of this I misjudged how much paper I would need for the mouthwash so squashed the lid to fit the rest in; so when I came to the second drawing I worked from  the mouthwash down.

On the first attempt I forgot what I was instructed to do in the exercise. Instead of writing down about the techniques I used I totally ripped the sketches apart fault by fault, only actually remembering what I was supposed to do after I took the photo to upload to my working log. I decided to do the exercise again and this time do it right.

In my second attempt I scaled the drawings down and was less worried about every detail. My hatching technique also seemed to improve a lot in my second attempt, using a variation of cross, vertical and horizontal hatching as well as swooping lines to follow the contours of certain objects.

Second Attempt at this exercise was much better

This exercise was probably the first time that I made no attempt of smudging in the pencil lines instead I practiced the pencil holding techniques I used earlier in this course, from the tip, from the end etc...

The hardest thing to draw in the composition were the toothbrush and razor and I felt like abandoning the objects and using something easier to draw but stuck at it and did a reasonably good attempt at getting proportions and details right all 4 times

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Drawing 1, Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Reflected Light, Research Point - Patrick Caulfield (Part 2)

The brief for this was to make a drawing in a similar style to Patrick Caulfield White Ware screen prints, it wasn't that easy. I decided that I wasn't going to keep looking at his images so after I finished my part 1 of this research point, researching him, I thought I could remember enough about his prints and paintings to work in a similar style.

I decided to work on an A2 sheet from my larger sketchbook which is too big to work with felt tips and I wanted to show as little pen or brush strokes as possible so I went out and bought some Kurecolor graphic design markers, which were very expensive but well worth the money.

I used the vase that I used in an an earlier exercise 'Study of Light Reflected from one Object to Another' and placed it in the chair that I would usually sit in to do my work. I wanted to shine a more acute light on my subject so instead of using the bendy light that I used before I used a torch that I got free from the local western supermarket. I knew that the batteries in the torch wouldn't last that long so I turned all the lights off found the right angle for the torch to shine at and took a photo, then I worked completely from the photo.

Photo with Torch, vase and Chair

I started by drawing the shadow on the vase, then instead of using white I used colour for the other half, I purchased the markers day before but I swapped vases so the colour did not match but I wasn't worried about that, I just wanted to know if I could draw something in the similar style as Patrick Caulfield, I highlighted the light reflected from the vase vase by leaving those areas blank.

Drawing after first Two Colours

I used grey for the light that spread from the torch beam as I had I didn't want the drawing to be completely dark and I had seen Patrick Caulfield also use grey in his paintings, this paid off.

Finished drawing

I cut down on the detail in my drawing and over exaggerated the detail that was left, after adding colour to the vase shadows and foreground I stopped looking at the photo and worked completely from memory hence the various differences like the position of the door handle  and seams in the chair positioning where I thought they would look best rather than where they should be.

I was really happy with the finished drawing and even though it doesn't resemble any 1 particular Caulfield style of painting you can tell he is the inspiration behind it.

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Drawing 1, Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Reflected Light, Research Point - Patrick Caulfield (Part1)

Patrick Caulfield (29 Jan 1936 - 29 Sept 2005) was an English painter and printmaker who started his formal education as an artist at the Chelsea School of Art in 1956. He then studied from 1960-1963 at the Royal College of Art where he was one year below students who were credited with starting the UK pop art movement.

As a student he was influenced by abstract painters such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock even though he only experimented in abstract painting for a short time. His bold, colourful prints and paintings are deemed to be Pop Art even though Caulfield himself was wary of being connected with any such movements. His association with the movement with ‘Pop Art’, mainly due to exhibiting alongside David Hockney, Allen Jones and R B Kitaj at the ‘New Generation’ exhibition in 1964.

Unlike the American Pop Artists his works depicted ordinary every day subjects such as a vase, buildings or interiors rather than images of popular culture such as celebrities or advertising products. It is the way he treats his subject that that gives his work a Pop Art feel, creating ambiguity by treating fine art subjects in an unrealistic and stylised manner.

When I first looked at Caulfield’s work it seems to me that the negative space plays just as much an important role in his paintings as positive space. In some of his images he uses negative space to sculpture the objects which in some cases are an abstract image but we get the sense that we are looking at the whole thing subject.

In the ‘White Ware’ screen prints he has managed to balance out the level of importance between negative space, reflected light and what we automatically presume is the main subjects such as a vase. With this he leaves the viewer trying to imagine what the light source maybe or what could be causing the shadows in his images. He also creates a good sense of distance between the foreground objects and what’s happening in the background by using very simple shapes to depict reflected light for example.

Lung Ch'uan Ware and Black Lamp 1990

In some of these prints he has inserted a second object behind the main subject, this is made up of one or two shapes and difficult to work out what it is but is just as important as the main subject. I love some of his other paintings and in the future I would very much like to paint something in the style of ‘After Lunch 1975’ due to the simplicity of my Bangkok apartment and the technical city scape outside. For now I will concentrate on the task at hand and make a drawing in the style of his ‘White Ware’ screen prints for this research point.

 Blibliography

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=10

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/patrick-caulfield-873

http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T014930?q=patrick+caulfield&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit

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Drawing 1, Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Reflected Light - 2 Shadows and Reflected Light and Shade

In this exercise I was instructed to 'Use charcoal, a putty rubber and pick two objects with shiny reflective surfaces. Decide on the size of the composition, use A1 or A2 paper so that you can do bold strokes. Try to fill the paper with your objects showing the reflected light and shade of one object falling on another and try to leave very little background space.'

Photo of Chosen Objects, Sieve and Ladle

I went out and purchased a few objects specifically for this exercise, after putting them together in pairs to see how they reflected off each other I settled for what I think is some kind of sieve and a ladle. I chose A2 for the composition because my drawing board wasn't big so an A1 size drawing board will be my next purchase. The brief said to leave very little background but I wanted to show some of the handle of the ladle and the shadow that it cast but to be honest I could have shown a lot less and made the objects bigger.

Drawing Pattern of Shadow

I sketched an outline with an H3 pencil then as instructed I drew the basic pattern of shadow first with sweeps of charcoal. I did try hatching but the charcoal seemed to leave too darker marks on the paper even trying the charcoal at different angles, this may have been down to the smoothness of the Carson paper that I used.

I tried to stay away from smudging the charcoal as it said nothing about it in the brief but when I did resort to smudging my finger took too much off so I used a stump that I forgot I had. It was great for smudging the charcoal without taking too much off as well as drawing solid outlines. I think if I had used A1 sized paper I could have probably had a better chance of completing the drawing using hatching.

Finished Drawing, Shadows and Reflective Light and Shade

I did start off with the darker tones on the ladle but just on the inner shadows to make sure I was drawing the correct shape (hopefully in time I'll get more confident with charcoal) and then once everything was fine I switched to the mid tones and then built up to the darker tones.

For the lightest tones and the light reflected from the bendy lamp I used a putty rubber to erase the charcoal. I bought a couple of Conte  knead-able erasers which were much better quality than the ones I bought when starting off the course which stuck to everything in the Bangkok heat and left debris on the paper.

I enjoyed the exercise and proud of the result but I am still lacking the confidence with charcoal. I seem to still have a lot more to know about the different types of charcoal, if time allowed I would have liked to have done this again on an A1 sheet of paper to see if I can do the whole exercise without smudging.

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Drawing 1,Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Reflected Light, Study of Light Reflected from one Object to Another

The brief was to 'Arrange two three objects ,  at least one of which has a shiny reflective surface, side by side with a small space in between them. Place a light source so that it is to one side of your (two) objects to cast clear shadows. Sit so that you can easily see the shadow on one side of the objects and the light on the other'.

Objects with Coloured Paper Background

The first sentence said two or three and the second paragraph said two but the example students drawing had quite a few objects so I want for four, which were a ceramic bowl, a pearlescent vase, a Chinese style vase and a glass teapot. The glass teapot had a chrome band around it but it didn't cover a large area so I filled it up with a very strong black coffee in order to make the glass more reflective

The sample student drawing was on coloured paper which gave me an idea, so I bought some large sheets of orange coloured paper and set one as the background and did the drawing on the other. The medium I chose for this exercise was hard pastel by Cretacolor, I had never drawn with hard pastel before and this was the perfect chance to lose my virginity.

I was instructed to draw the main shadow pattern created by the light source first then add the reflective light and shadow patterns to the drawing. I followed the instructions drawing it in graphite pencil first as I knew that when it came to add the shadow patterns and reflective light with the hard pastel I would have to work on an object at a time due to how much work blending in this medium needed especially on the coloured paper that I chose.

A Close up of my Finished Drawing in Hard Pastel

I found that I bit off more than I could chew and it took me about 6 hours to finish the exercise, and the colours on the objects in the drawing were quite different from real life, I find blending most mediums quite difficult and really need to spend more time experimenting before working on a piece.

Although happy with the finished drawing I feel I have let myself down and could have gone out of my way to find better objects that were more reflective, although the teapot reflected the colour of the other objects quite well over the small reflective area, the pearlescent vase also did quite a good job.

I could have also done a better job of positioning the objects on the paper which was approximately A3 with about a third of the paper gone to waste.

The valuable lessons that I have learnt from this are that I should choose my mediums and objects wisely and  to use more of the paper next time.

Bad Example of Paper Wastage

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