Assignment Two.

I wanted to draw something in the chapel, (which is attached onto the building I live in.) deigned by A. W. Pugin.
I am very attached to this building (I have known it all my life)

I love Gothic and Gothic revival architecture.

My attention was drawn to the carvings on either end of pews, (some are badly broken and damaged, but a few are still intact.)

So, to get an idea of what (and in what way) I was going draw , 

I did a some quick drawings of the carvings I liked best, in my sketchbook.

Various reddy-browns and white chalks on dark brown paper.

Fountain pen and wash.

Fineliner and watercolour.

Whiteboard marker and red watercolour.

Ballpoint pen, white conté and brown watercolour, on light brown support.

Pencil on white paper.

After this, I had a bit of a better idea of what I was doing,

I did so small thumbnail sketches, to help with the compensation.

This was the idea for the final composition. 

On grey paper with blackboard marker, fineliner, white chalk and watercolour.

White support with whiteboard marker.

Later I found this carving (a bit further up the nave,)

I must have missed it on my first look around.

I  preferred this carved creature. 

And so decided to draw this carving, 

but to roughly stick to the same composition.  

(Sorry, not a very good photograph.)

Brief sketch with fountain pen and watercolour.

I chose a"Cool Blue" support,

sketched out the figure in the foreground in pencil. Then washes of blue watercolour.

I had thought about doing the drawing in browns (as the carving is wood) but went for using blue, 

brown can look warm and cosy, I think, and I wanted to get the feeling of the big, cold chapel. 

After the watercolour was dry, I used a three different sizes of fineliner to try and add depth and describe form,

concentrating on hatching marks.

I have been looking at and trying to emulate the work of the artist and children's illustrator Edward Ardizzone, a master of line and cross-hatching.

Edward Ardizzone, sketch of himself.

Then put in the highlights in using white chalk.

I had been doing all of the drawing so-far on sight, (in the chapel)

it was getting dark, so I took photographs and brought the drawing back up to the drawing-board, to try and work up the background from there.

Whether it was, 

that I had planed my original composition from a view further back, or that I was working from photos...

 or that I hadn't really thought enough about how the background was going to look, or all three.

I had great difficulty with the background. 

I wasn't really sure what I wanted for the background,

I had to draw and redraw the it several times.

With hindsight, I should have done a watery wash, (or something,) faded and very little detail, to accentuate the work in the foreground.

I stupidly went over my pencil lines with pen, and then a wash,

it was a mistake to put in all the architectural details (got a bit carried away) plus, the shapes were a bit wrong.

It was too ambitious.

I wanted to get sense of the distance, space and the loftiness of the building, but instead, because the window tracery came out so dark and detailed, it brought it forward and made it look very close.

I decided to try to fade out the strong lines in the background, using pastels and conté.

To a certain extent, it worked...it looks further away, at any rate.

So this is my finished drawing for "Assignment Two."

I am not that pleased with it,

the drawing is too dark, or rather there is not enough variation and contrast. 

I also think the washes of watercolour were too opaque. 

The perspective is poor.

 I think it is over worked too...in some places. 

There are things I like about the drawing, 

I like the light coming through the window,

(I achieved this affect by lightly scraping a white conté stick, on it's side, in one direction, then doing the same with a light blue and a red pastels, trying get the look of light through stained glass.)

I also liked some of the cross hatching on the carving. 

But on the whole, I am dissatisfied with the result of this drawing. 

I want to learn how to really finish a drawing. 

I do all these preparational drawings and sketches,

and often the quick drawings look nicer then the finished piece.

This is something I would like to work on.

Exercise (5) Mixed Media. Project (6) At Home.

I chose a view in my bedroom.

I did this in mixture of, black whiteboard pen, watercolour, black fineliner, different hues of felt tip,

wax crayons conté.

I don't like this drawing, 

although I put on all sorts of  materials, it still looks like a rather dull watercolour.

So I had another go.

I did this one in, a whiteboard pen, watercolour, different hues of fineliner, some coloured felt tips and black conté.

This was a bit better.

A bit more interesting, I think.

Black fineliner and black conté.

I like this drawing, there is something quite nice about the mixture of conté and pen. 

The pen lines are so thin and having the areas of conté juxtapose very well.

Black and red fineliner, and red and black conté.

Liking the drawing before, 

I did another,

very quickly,

 with another colour this time.

In these drawings, I stretched the view, making it almost panoramic.

(my room isn't actually this big)

I think the third drawing works best, with no colour.

Exercise (4) Line and Wash. Project (6) At Home.

View at end of the hall.

In dark brown Conté stick.

View at the other end of the hall.

In charcoal.

View at the other end of the hall.

In charcoal.

Bookcases in the hall.

In graphite stick.

View of table in kitchen.

In felt tip pen.

Sitting room.

Using finliner and watercolour.

Sitting room. 

Using pencil and watercolour.

Two views of the old and beautiful staircase up to our flat. 

using a fountain pen and an "Aquash Brush". 

I was rather disappointed with these drawings. 

As a rule, line and wash is one of my very favourite techniques, 

maybe the stairs were a bit ambitious (with all those complicated angles)

But I do think I can do better than  I have done here.

I don't think I got the feel of the staircase, and the sitting room less so.

Exercise (3) Tonal Study. Project (6) At Home.

Graphite stick and pencil on white support.

This view is back in the sitting room,

I  liked the light coming in from the big sash window,

I think it makes for some interesting light and darks.  

I am not happy with the armchair, it is not clear or well defined, it is a bit of a ghost chair and lacks solidity, 

there are not enough darks on it...I think.

I quite like the way the Rocking Horse came out, but I am

not sure about the angle of the lines indicating where the walls end and ceiling begins, though.

When doing drawings using a lot of tone, I like to have lots of the shading-lines going in one direction, and then, when I do put in lines going in at other angle, they stand out quite nicely, I think. 

Research Point.

When browsing the web for interesting images of drawings of interiors, this drawing caught my eye.

I found out that it had been created by Albert Hadley, 

I read a bit about him, 

he was an American interior designer and decorator, (1920 to 2012)

So not really a fine artist (so to speak) by profession,

But he did lots of sketches and drawn designs, which I like very much, 

they seem so quick and fluid, yet even so, he doesn't lose the perspective and I really get a sense of space.

Here are some more of his drawings and designs.

But returning to this drawing,

I think, the way he just put in the bookshelves in that red colour is so effective and striking. 

He is very clever at making a drawing look detailed with very little effort, I mean, the way he put in those short fast lines indicating the books on the shelves, 

interesting how if you take a small section of a shelf away from the rest, to look at, it makes very little sense, 

but when put all together the viewer sees the pattern a bookshelf makes and doesn't question the way the books bear very little resemblance to books. 

I am very interested in how this works, how every part of a drawing doesn't have to look right separately, but only as a whole. 

Another artist I found, in a book, 

called Glynn Boyd Harte, I couldn't find very much about him. but I like his work too.

I really like the effect of bright continental sunlight he achieves in these views through a window.The shadows are very dark and he uses a lot of blue and purple to contrast with the bright sunny yellows. I also like his use of negative spaces and the treatment of the window panes with almost abstract patterns of the reflections  in each pane.

Exercise (2) Composition - An Interior. Project (6) At Home.

(1) view from the front, eye level.

I did this on dark purple support, 

using a black white-board marker and a white gel pen.

(2) view from the front, above.

On dark purple paper again, 

using a black white-board marker and a white gel pen.

(3) view from the left, eye level.

Light brown support,

using a black white-board marker and a white gel pen.

(4) view from the left, bellow.

Beige support,

using a black white-board marker and a white gel pen.

I chose a view not dissimilar from (3), 

I liked this view because of the triangular dark space behind my drawing-board...it interested me.

I chose a beige support,

and drew it in whiteboard marker three tones,

(or rather three of the same type of pen at three different stages of running-out... and when applying these with different pressures, it creates quite a wide spectrum of tones.) 

I sketched out the shapes in the pen closest to the end of it's mortal coil, then put in the blocks of hatching with the second pen and the darkest darks with the almost new pen. 

Then I stuck in some black conté, using the stick in its side, putting this over the top of my hatching,

and finely used white conté for the highlights.