Research Point.

Charcoal pencil.

Quick sketch of self in mirror.

The light reflected into the mirror and casting a strange light...which was fun. Don't like the rest of the drawing much, got little of a likeness, and don't think the foreshortening was very successful.

"The Lamentation of Christ" or "The Dead Christ" 

by Andrea Mantegna.

This is one very early example of foreshortening.

Mantegna was very interested in extreme perspective. 

This painting is obviously distorted, but I think it almost feels like the feet are in the viewers peripheral vision, and this distorted just serves to drew the eye directly to the face. 

foreshortening is often used by the Renaissance artists to create an illusion of depth, but in this painting the artist is using it to draw us in.

Exercise (2) A Longer Study. Project (2) Proportion.

I attend (and have for a few years) a Saturday life drawing class at The Royal Drawing School, in London. 

As this is a class, and I am working at an easel, I don't have any input over how the model poses nor were I am placed to draw, if it's a crowded lesson,  at any rate. So,  accordingly, the angle I had isn't the most exciting.

Black, red and white drawing pencils, on a light-ish brown support.

I quite like this longer study, the proportions aren't too bad and I enjoyed the cross-hatching.

The weight of the pose seems believable.  

But problems I have with it are that the lighting comes across as a bit ambiguous, the bent leg (the models left leg) doesn't work so well and the calf seems flat,

  there isn't enough neck and the foreshortening on her right arm isn't right. 

Exercise (1) Quick Studies. Project (2) Proportion.

I had the chance to have two different models on this particular day... so I took it. 

I tried to keep all the lines free and loose, starting near the middle (as suggested) but making small marks before, where I estimated key landmarks might be, to avoid going off the edge of my paper or something. 

Charcoal pencil.

Charcoal pencil and white conté on blue paper.

Pencil and white conté on a light brown paper.

Watercolour sketch, on a yellow support.  

I might have gone a bit over the two minute mark on some of theses sketches. 

Whiteboard marker on a yellow paper.

Quite like this ten minute drawing, it seems to be reasonably in proportion and the black looks nice on the yellow. 

The crossed leg seems to work, and it has a soft feeling to it, due to the marker nearly running out.

Drawn in watercolour.

Whiteboard marker and wash.

Watercolour pencil and wash.

Fineliner.

Fineliner.

This one was more like five minutes.

Ballpoint pen with black and white conté on yellow paper. 

I like this other ten minute sketch less, the head is too big, the legs are too small and crossed leg doesn't come towards you enough.

Exercise (2) Emphasising Form with Cloth. Project (1) Fabric and Form.

This is a family member sitting (in a dressing-gown) reading.

Pencil.

Pencil.

Pencil.

Three sketches from different views around the model, done very fast, to try and get a idea were to sit.  

Using pencil, dip in pen, watercolour washes and gouache, on a pale bluey-grey support. 

I started with a blue-ish wash of watercolour, establishing the main areas of dark and light. I followed this with pencil to get the shapes, applying more washes before working with the dip in pen and the finally adding white watercolour in all the light regions and then a small amount of gouache in the really whitest highlights.

I don't like this at all really, it is all very stiff and lifeless, this (I think) comes from the little short lines I used (which is a lack of confidence), if it was a bit more flowing and sweeping I think the figure would look more alive. I also think it could have done with a bit more of a 'lost and found line.'...Something to try and remember in the future.

The crossed leg doesn't appear to come forward enough (I think the foot should have been bigger, I wasn't thinking enough about foreshortening.) 

Still, the colours are nice, and if you blur your eyes when looking at it the light and shadow seem to have come out all right.

Exercise (1) Drawing Fabric Using Line and Tone. Project (1) Fabric and Form.

I got a funny old high backed chair with a low seat, and a large curtain of thick material. 

I then put a strong light coming from the right, and arranged the curtain on the chair, with enough folds to make it interesting but not too many to make it unmanageable and overwhelming.

Dip in pen.

Graphite stick and pencil.

 Ballpoint Biro pen.

Red chalk pencil.

Penicl.

Charcoal stick and charcoal pencil.

A grey and a black felt tip pen.

Charcoal stick and charcoal pencil.

Whiteboard marker.

Pencil and watercolour wash.

I found it quite hard to create a good sense of volume to the folds of fabric in the time allotted, especially making the eighth, five minute sketch look thick at all.

And the two fifteen minute drawings, I feel, could have looked more finished. 

The truth is I am so very slow at drawing, the fifteen minute goes and I have little to show for it, I must try and draw faster... but still try and uphold a certain level of quality .  

Assignment Three.

My First Try.

For Assignment Three I had thought of some sort of landscape with ruins in it.

I had vaguely in the back of my mind something J. M. W. Turner like, I have seen landscapes of his with wonderful ruins in them.

I am very fond of ruins, there is something so sad and beautiful about them.

Photograph of Walsingham Priory ruins.

I visited (but not expressly) some Priory ruins in Walsingham, Norfolk, (destroyed during the iconoclasm under the reign of Henry VIII.)  

I very much like this photograph I took when there and thought it would make a good drawing.

I don't like working from photos, but as I live far away from this Priory I couldn't go and draw on sight... 

I did print it out though, and drew from that, rather than a screen. 

Dip in pen and wash in ink.

I did this as a sort of thumbnail sketch, to get warmed up and to familiarise myself with the shapes and tones of the composition.  

Dip in pen (also using a sharpened matchstick) and wash.

First I tried a dip in pen with wash 

(a medium that came naturally to mind, I don't really know why.)

I also drew the trees with a sharpened stick, I had seen this done somewhere or another, and it was fun. 

But unsatisfied with the result of this, (I wish to persevere with this material, just not on a assignment. I think all my attempts have  looked somewhat heavy-handed.)    

graphite pencil and graphite stick.

I had a go with graphite next, this looks slightly better, but the perspective and shapes were thoroughly wrong.

Charcoal pencil (and charcoal stick) on white paper.

I had a go with charcoal, not my favourite thing to draw with, but I thought I might have a stab at it, and it is another material I would like to be more confident in.

Dip in pen, and watercolour.

My last try was with dip in pen again and wash (or rather what should have been a wash but turned into a watercolour painting.)

I decided that the view was the thing that was wrong with all the work above, 

Although looking through the archway was a fun, a sort of frame to the composition, there wasn't enough to the rest of it, just being a stretch of grass and a mound with an arch on top, there wasn't much in the middle-ground at all. 

Maybe it wasn't so much the photo but that I had what ever the artist's equivalent is to writer's block, so I resolved to change my composition.

My Second Try.

A photograph of the Abbey ruins, York.

Keeping with the ruins idea, I found this photo, taken when I was in York, of the Abbey ruins there.

I like this image, the lighting is very nice, the long shadows show that it is late evening and I love the two large, dark stone-ish forms to ether side, and crisply light up bench, (although I excluded the lens flare from my drawing.)

The composition is, (I consider) much more interesting than the one before, it allows for more depth, having objects at different distances throughout.  

I later discovered that Turner had actually sketched theses very same ruins (and very almost the same viewpoint), 

sadly too late for me to draw inspiration from his stunningly delectable drawing. 

J. M. W. Turner, The Ruined West Front of St Mary's Abbey Church, York.

Dip in pen (also using a sharpened matchstick) and wash.

Again, I did two quick sketches.

Charcoal pencil and stick, white chalk on a purple support.

You can see from both these thumbnails that, at first, I intended to leave out the bench, but thought better of it, as it makes for a bit of detail, while the angle of it brings the eye into the drawing.

Assignment Three. A small bit of dip in pen and graphite pencil on a white support.

I sketched in the shapes roughly with pen and ink.

Sharpening my pencil in such a was that I (using the side of the lead) could make thick lines of tone, I rendered the drawing, carefully and softly putting in the house and trees in the background and getting darker as I came closer and closer to the foreground. 

I put in some of the architectural details, 

but being mindful that the constructive criticism of my last assignment was that I had been too precious in the way I had treated some of the more intricate parts of the drawing, and so I tried not to get carried away, and spent little time on it.

I finished off with the bench, enjoying the shadows under and on it.

I am quite pleased with the way it looks and enjoyed doing it, although its not the most exciting of drawings and I am annoyed with myself reverting back to pencil again, in the end.

It might have looked a bit more striking if I had used black conté or something of that ilk, or maybe put some colour in it.