Page for ongoing improvement in art, in media including pencil, watercolour and digital painting. Subject matter likely to include figures and technical elements.
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WEEK ONE
These are the three works from the first semester that I am most pleased with. They are all copies, as my focus was on refining my technique, rather than trying to create new material.
Isometric study of Suzuki Samurai Transmission (copy after the Suzuki Samurai Owner’s Manual): This is by far my favourite piece. Line and especially tone were used to inform shape, and while this was successful for the most part, there are areas where the image breaks down. The more complex vanes of the differential housing in particular were very difficult to convey – in this case, a greater use of line would have benefited the piece.
Overall, a greater range of tones would also have been appropriate. Composition as a whole is serviceable, but could be better balanced. However, the more difficult composite shapes of the axle housings come across well, as do the hollow ball joints on the front axle.
Unnamed copy after reddit user /u/hotboxchick: Overall a relatively successful piece. Tone is used well to convey atmospheric perspective, with different textures for the trees, mountainsides, and sky lending further appeal. Colours in the sky are used to moderate effect, and while the bright “channel” is shown well in contrast to richer dark areas, elsewhere the colours do not complement each other. There have been abortive attempts to draw in proper curtains of aurora – these were a comprehensive mistake. There are obvious errors in execution around the borders of the picture, where the artist’s incompetence is shown. The composition is very strong, however.
Were I to remake this piece, above all, I would use masking tape to avoid infantile errors.I would also refrain from defined shapes in the aurora, and instead incorporate a wider range of colours in the sky itself, as was done in the original piece. I also discovered a fascinating effect achieved when the lines used to shade the mountains are disturbed, leading to the suggestion of three-dimensional shapes, not unlike a wave scanner – this absolutely merits further investigation.
Partial copy after George Seurat “The Circus”: Some detail has been lost in the scan, but the piece is still effective. A wide range of colours were used and the pointillist style was emulated relatively successfully. Individual blocks of colour work very well; the piece has failed to blend them properly. The lines between both areas of colour and areas of high and low point density are far too sharp, and it hampers the eye from perceiving them as a cohesive whole. The canvas would also have benefited from a faint wash, as currently the colours of the subject are too weak to stand out properly from the white.
RAPID SKETCHING
Continued practice in communicating various forms quickly. Relatively successful, although very stringent time constraints prevented me from achieving any great quality.
With the home study, I allowed myself a little more time to attack more technical shapes, and I am pleased with the result. On the cube and flange, I implemented a technique I learned while making the Suzuki transmission, leaving a thin line uncovered to suggest a bevel on the edge. Doing this showed me how useful it would be to have a white gel pen.
Joints in bottom left are drawn from a robotic snake drone as it coils around a tree.
This piece as a whole is not yet complete – I am still looking for a large subject to fill the remaining space.
FABRIC
This was fun.
My first ever attempt at rendering draped cloth, drawn from life. On the whole, I think it was successful. Composition was originally lacking, but with annotations and later, smaller drawing, it has a nice sketchbook feeling. The structure of the table is communicated well, although a large area of blankness causes the illusion to break down.
I personally feel that the more tightly folded sections of the cloth are most effective, although Kate our teacher thought the opposite.
The smaller sketch to the top right was done after the larger, and the system I had devised halfway through drawing the table was used rigidly: on any fold of material, any one band of tone must have one border that is soft, and one that is harsh. Thus each presents a gradient from light into shadow.
This is the longest I have yet spent on a drawing, at roughly 25 hours of work. To save ink, I combined both into one piece, but it is not to its benefit.
On the left is a coat, drawn from reference. I challenged myself to draw a different type of material; waterproof nylon gives sharp, shallow wrinkles, quite unlike drapery; to make matters worse, the original coat has a stark black and white pattern. Even with the reference, communicating this was extremely challenging. Were I to attempt this again, I would first produce a value table and work out each tone in isolation, as trying to remember them all was nearly impossible. I think it is overall effective, and the patterning is evident in most places, although the harsh tone on the right breast pocket is misleading. There is also a fairly strong communication of the light source.
Piece on the right is titled The Well. It is drawn completely from imagination and construction. It was grueling.
The figure at the base is intentionally left blank, as the cloth is the focus of the exercise; in time, I will complete it. The cloth itself is convincing enough, although the top layer is too sparse, and on inspection, the middle layer appears oddly slack, even in the midst of its span. The wires holding the cloth are not proper parabolae; were I to reattempt this, I would trace over a line generator to achieve the proper weight.
There was originally a plan to have a harsh spotlight shine down upon the figure, illuminating each span less and less, but without reference, I am confident that I would have ruined the piece had I attempted it.
This is unfinished, but it stands an exercise in how little is necessary to convey moving fabric. Drawn from reference (from The Sound of Music). This also follows on from figures…
HUMAN DRAWING
In order to capture the human form effectively, it is imperative to understand the skeleton, the muscles, and proportion. In this exercise, we were tasked to draw a skeleton; I chose an angle containing challenging foreshortening.
From a previous lecture, I knew how to apply constructional techniques, and measuring by heads in particular was very useful, as the construction lines show. This exercise taught me a lot, but the result is not impressive.
Drawing from a life model was extremely beneficial, if not all that enjoyable. I am uncomfortable working at a larger scale, and these pieces show it.
There is some occasional success, but overall proportion and form remain serious problems, even with the bevy of constructional techniques I attempted to employ. I am much, much more comfortable drawing from photo reference.
We were asked to draw a self-portrait showing anger, from life, paying attention to the muscles in the face. I think the portrait itself is reasonably accurate, and I am especially pleased with the integration of the glasses, and their effect on the underlying tone. I think the tone in general is quite successful in communicating form (although a harsh light helped greatly). I was also pleased with how successfully the emotion is conveyed, even if my angry face does just look pouty. The linework is as feathery as ever, although in this case I think it helps the tone of the piece. All in all, as this was a new experience for me, I am satisfied that it is of any quality at all.
The composition is atrocious. I began the drawing with the eyes, and placed them too far up the page; once I realised my mistake, I was unwilling to start again, and so the top of the head, and the hair, are cut off.
To practise figure drawing, and advance our understanding of their structure, we were asked to draw figures in motion for home study. I used reference of a sequence of capoeira, aiming first to capture the motion, and then to be accurate to the figures’ components. I believe I was generally successful, although both figures’ hands, and the area around the muscle figure’s face, are very unclear.
I was apprehensive of the pose of the left figure, given the problems I had previously encountered when drawing a skeleton with foreshortening; however, the left femur does read well on initial viewing.
We Present: 