Lost in Negative Space

Note- this exercise is severely out of sequence in the assignment; despite being a trained horticulturalist my ability to kill pot plants is legendary, so having found the perfect specimen I really needed to seize the moment.
On another note, my main camera has died and the photos here are taken on my back-up compact camera, apologies for the inferior quality.

Amid the instructions for this exercise was this rider: "you may need to add enough lines to make the image readable to the viewer". Well, I know a challenge when I see one so was determined to find a plant which would not require extra "readability". I finally settled on a schefflera, as it has plenty of gaps through the foliage and a complex and challenging shape where the leaves interlace. My initial outline was done in pencil and gone over with drawing pen. I drew in the back of the table to anchor the image to the frame.

Having achieved a reasonable image on my first attempt, I was itching to colour it in. I traced off a couple of outlines onto marker paper to play with. On the first of these, I began to fill in the negative spaces in black ink, starting with the internal shapes. When I ran out of these I realised that the way they were disposed across the page made for an interesting dynamic shape, so I opted not to fill in the remaining background. (Or maybe I've just been drawing too many shells; the shape is suggestive of the central spiral in a whelk)

Next I fetched out the markers and quckly chose a series of pastel shades to scrawl across the area of the plant, before shading the background in a darker tone.

By this time I was throughly enjoying chasing down the many design possibilities in the drawing, and began thinking in terms of printmaking; the silhouette would be equally adaptable as either linocut or silkscreen. I opted to draw a monochrome version cropped through with a trapezoid shape for the background; I was also exploring the lengths to which I could crop or abstract the image before it lost its readability.

I had slightly adapted the shape in this one to improve the line- I had removed the supporting bamboo stick and drew in the base of the stem to give a clean finish to the bottom.

A couple of days later, having had time to think up new approaches, I decided to abstract two sections onto a circle, layering them and applying tone to identify them. I drew my circle onto tracing paper and began with the top section, moving the frame around until I was happy with the intersection around the rim.
For the second layer, I moved the paper over the lower set of leaves and aligned it so that the stem section lined up with what was already drawn, as I didn't want a second stem showing. I changed to a brown drawing pen to be able to identify which lines belonged to which layer, even so it rapidly became a confusing mass of lines, and I had little choice but to colour it in to make visual sense again.

To avoid having outlines on the final version, I traced the design through to a flesh tinted card with an embossing tool, using enough pressure to give a clear outline which could be seen in raking light, before colouring it in.

Sadly the spare camera's software didn't like the colours I used, and the picture doesn't really show how well it worked. If I wasn't a total klutz with image software, I'd happily scan and mask it for flat areas of colour and the ability to try out lots of colourways in a shorter time span. However, I think a week is enough time spent on this exercise for now, and it's time to get back on track and find out where I put my half-finished stipple drawing...

Studies on coloured backgrounds

After the trials of Saturday, I decided to take a fresh approach and play around in the negative- i.e. drawing light onto dark. Originally I intended to work on black paper but realised that I could make the background colour work for me on the tomatoes so selected the most vivid red I had. I started working with a normal kid's quality white crayon and soon realised it didn't have the pigment level to produce results- a salutory lesson in choosing suitable tools! I swopped over to my Caran d'Ache set, using only white, pastel yellow, and grey-blue for the shadows, and two tones of olive for the stalks. I liked the graphic quality of the finished study.

Pleased with this attempt, I then turned to the aubergines, which I decided to put on a black plate to really force me to describe them with highlights. This time I did use my black sketchbook as I couldn't find a suitable aubergine starting colour, and probably a greater number of colours as I was cross-hatching and blending in places.

Lots more veg to work through yet, so don't go away!!

A bad day for Ratatouille...

I'm off work this week so am trying to have a major push on coursework. Last Saturday I dashed to the shops and selected the week's fruit and veg on the basis of how interesting it was to draw, came home and immediately set up a collection of veg to work on.

Pretty soon I realised it was not going to be a good day. I couldn't get comfortable, moved the easel position several times, and squinted in vain to see why the left hand side of my study didn't match up. The first failed attempt is above- I decided I had put too much in so removed a few things and tried again.

As you can see I got even less far with this attempt, again due to an inability to reconcile the respective placement of the foreshortened aubergine, garlic and knife handle. My husband intervened at this point to forcibly remove me from the studio (the air had taken on a blue tone) and feed me with bacon sarnies and coffee, at which point I realised that with the sheer amount of hours I'd been working, I should have really taken the weekend off for some R&R before diving in.

However, as I needed some of the veg for dinner, I had to dive back in later, so chose to use my favourite charcoal and eraser technique in an attempt to get past the block.

It's not perfect and I was grateful for some candid feedback from a co-student after I posted it on the forums, but at least I felt I had beaten the jinx.

Valid points raised were errors in the shadows, not defining the back edge of the board, and the enormous negative space left at the top- which I would have trimmed off when mounting. Also I still had a diagonal void between the upper left and lower right halves; the tomatoes intersected with the tip of the marrow and were higher up the board (which is why I hadn't seen the back of the board).

However, even bad things can be learnt from and as this is the first really low point I've hit on the course it probably shows I have a good level of motivation- I'm certainly not going to be beaten by a few pesky veg!



Shopping and still life

I've had a very good day today, having managed to produce three decent drawings, finding some wonderful books in the charity shop and stocking up on sketchbooks at the art shop who conveniently have 25% off everything for the next few weeks.

My first endeavour was one I'd been thinking about all week. Having seen quite a few indian ink studies recently by fellow students, I thought it was about time I tried the medium, as I usually only use disposable drawing pens in terms of ink. I also chose to use a brush, which up until now I've avoided in case I got sidetracked into painting when I should be doing coursework!

I decided to follow up on the reflected light and shade exercise for this and placed two tankards side by side in the window.

I mixed up several strengths of ink in a palette before starting, and briefly sketched the outlines in pencil before inking. It took a while to get the right amount of ink and water on the brush, and it behaved rather like watercolour- a medium I dislike. It was only after i'd finished that I realised how wrong the left side of the left-hand tankard is, possibly because it had a fair amount of light bouncing onto it from the window and wall and I misjudged the profile. The most effective bit is the handle of the right-hand tankard, in fact, the other could have done with some stronger tones on the handle too. However, I was fairly pleased with it as a first effort in ink.

Changing track, I picked out some pieces of pot pourri and arranged them in a loose group. I wanted to practice concentrating on the outlines rather than on what I was drawing, and the only way to develop this technique is to do it over and over until it starts to become second nature. I can feel I'm getting better at it, and was pleasantly surprised how all the elements came out more or less as they looked and in their correct relative positions. (Especially the complicated woven twig ball!) I decided to shade in the shadows in order to anchor the pieces to the surface- they looked a bit abstract without them.

Next up was the shopping trip as I wanted some watercolour paper on which to work with my coloured pencils, and while we were in town I went to a couple of nearby charity shops to scout for useful still life accessories. One shop I find always seems to have a good selection of art books, and I was delighted to find a clearly laid out manual on drawing domestic animals, for a fraction of the price I would otherwise have had to pay.

Also, hidden away on the shelf, was a charming old cloth-bound book "Hints for Sketching Trees from Nature in Water Colours". It's a 16th edition of a guide published by George Rowney and Co, with no imprint page to tell the date of publication, but the catalogue pages in the back state that prices are correct as of April 1st 1919! A red sable brush, size 4, would have set you back 1s (that's 5p in today's money) although there is a rider that sable price was fluctuating. I particularly like the Victorian style of prose, complete with capitalisation of key words, and I'm also sure that some useful advice can be gleaned from it which is still relevant today. There are a number of charming sepia plates in it by way of illustration.

Having arrived back home somewhat lighter in the wallet than when I left, I returned to work with a dragon fruit and soon discovered that the shape was far more challenging than I had at first thought, eventually, after well over three hours, I managed to bring it to some sort of completion before I lost the remaining daylight.

Hopefully I may have enough time to do a colour study of this later this week. And yes- I realise I'm jumping forward into Assignment 2 areas! Watch this space...

Beachcombing finds

Well I'm back from the beach, and picked up a handful of things all with different textures, so sat down with my sketchbook this evening to draw them. I used a drawing pen only- no cheating this time with pencil guidelines!- and drew all the items at about one-and-a-quarter life size.

The piece of partly burnt rib was the most intricate as there are some incredibly detailed ridge and hollow formations, and I opted to try to suggest these rather than attempt to put every last detail in. The centre shell fragment was difficult too, as the striations were mostly bands of colour rather than surface texture.

Time to call it a night now, as I'm planning to wade through balloons at Tate St Ives tomorrow, as well as taking notes on the art...

Reflected light and shade

This has taken me a while to start as I couldn't find a suitable metallic surface, until I unearthed this tankard from the depths of the sideboard. I used charcoal on A2 paper and stood at the easel in order to have a higher sightline than previous drawings. I tried to use a putty rubber but have always found the crumbly nature of them difficult, and reverted to a plastic eraser to achieve the highlights.

I enjoy drawing reflective surfaces but I found it hard to categorise which was direct and which reflected light- I tend to study the shapes and then apply relative tone values. In hindsight I think I should have started on a toned surface, so I'll have another stab at this as soon as time allows.

Tonal study of Platonic solids

I've had these lying around courtesy of A&I magazine for a few months as an accessory to a tonal painting exercise. As I couldn't otherwise put my hands immediately on "simple shapes" I thought that these would get me started on the exercise.

I drew the double pyramid (octahedron) first, and used a lot of blended shading. As is obvious, I used more cross-hatching in the other dodecahedron. I had set them up on a white card base with a table lamp to give directional lighting to the right-hand side, and it was surprising to discover how much of a double shadow was created by having the light source so close. Not having much knowledge of what these shape's properties were they proved quite challenging to draw- I moved the dodecahedron from its original position in order to relate it to the double pyramid shadow as I found I couldn't get a sense of scale without this. After that I learned quite a lot about the relative measurements sighting various measurements with my pencil at arm's lenght, especially the common measurements which proved to be not (too) far out in the final accounting.

Later that evening I made myself use a drawing pen (and my glasses) to develop the required tonal range in cross-hatching- I haven't done it yet but will do the cross-hatched Platonics yet!

Shopping still lfe

Having done the shopping early I had no excuse not to take some of my purchases and get on with the next exercise. I arranged them on a tray which was then put on a box on the table to raise the level up in relation to my working position.

I'm not fond of plain white paper so I lightly toned it with pale terracotta and naples yellow pastel blended with a paper towel, and applied fixative. This was a risky strategy as I had never worked on top of a fixed surface before so had no idea what problems I might have.

I didn't want the outlines to dominate as I was using colour, so I sketched in the main shapes lightly with a 2H pencil before pulling out my old watersoluble crayons (so old that I barely have the complete spectrum left among the survivors-which was to present its own challenge).

I worked up the different items in no particular order, starting with the bag of pasta, and leaving the ketchup till last as I knew that without a dark red or warm brown crayon I was going to find achieving the colour difficult. Eventually I layered up various reds, purples and browns, but needed something to unify it so had to change to a Ruby Earth pastel pencil. Likewise in order to get a good black tone I also used pastel.

The highlights on the box edges were lifted out with an eraser, but because of the ground colour I couldn't get a clean white, so used a couple of touches of white conte just on these areas.

My favourite bits of this picture are the bag of pasta, whose highly reflective surface made it very difficult to define shadow and light areas without a lot of squinting, and the lid of the jar, where the only two colours I had were yellow ochre and olive green, which I think produced a better result than if I had had the obvious choice of neutral warm grey-browns for the metal.

The weakest area is the top of the juice carton where the domed top proved difficult to get right- I over-judged the width ratio so it is a little bit wider than it actually is.

This is the first time for years I've used coloured pencils and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed working with them, much more so than with pastel. I did realise that I had fallen into my old way of working and was being shy with the strength of tone, and I didn't have a burnisher to hand to work the colour into the surface which would have improved the appearance of the ketchup bottle's surface. Still, I've realised that I need to replace my old Caran d'Arche pencil set, so I'm off now for a little on-line retail therapy!

Variation on cylindrical objects

I'm probably getting a bit carried away with cylinders but my original intention with this was to use contour shading. Having drawn in the basic shapes in pencil I sent a pot of markers flying while hunting for my drawing pens (serendipity) and decided to go for a tonal treatment instead, as I have a graded set of 5 cool greys, with the black provided by a (self proclaimed) Manga brush pen- it's a Pentel goodie I picked up in my local art shop and has a true and very sensitive brush tip made of synthetic fibres- still getting used to it for drawing usage but the ink is the densest black I currently have.

Having decided to leave the labels and markings off all but the small round pot, which looked a bit bland without any, I really enjoyed doing this, so much so that my husband came to see why I wasn't downstairs watching the run-up to the British GP (The one sport I follow!)

Although there are some visible wobbles I'm quite pleased with this as a whole, and including the table with its angular shapes gives a nice contrast to the objects used. The wall pattern is invented just to break up the area- I've painted the studio matt white for maximum light.


(thought) I'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself in the assignment sequence- oops, back to the shopping still life.

The cylinder theme will be continued shortly, as while at work I remembered that an endless supply of differnet sizes are available from our label printing room (cardboard roll centres), and I have great ideas of stringing them up to form a still life after painting them white...so I robbed out the rubbish bag tonight, I always did have a thing for abstracting designs...although I may digress into sculpture in the process...maybe this can be carried forward to printmaking...

Line drawing of box shapes

This exercise required a line drawing of a group of objects which were blocky in shape, so I assembled some books, two boxes, two vases and a box of ink. I soon had major difficulty in aligning the various items correctly in relation to each other and was not happy with the angles of the book edges as they do not appear to be sitting solidly on the box below.

In an attempt to loosen up I decided to draw the objects again by drawing the outline as a continous line first and adding some detail later. The horizontal line of the rear table edge threw me out so the bottom lines of the shape have been pushed upwards. However, I felt I had solved the lines of the books as they now appeared more connected to the other objects.

I realised that having set them up at the other end of the table they were actually too close to me, and the slightest change in my viewing position was significantly changing the perspective. I transferred all the items to a separate table further away and drew them again (below)

I spent much more time in this attempt at pencilling in the overall construction of each item as well as guidelines for their positions relative to each other. Having slightly changed their arrangement I had now removed the space between objects and found this a much more satisfying result.

I actually found this quite challenging as I haven't worked with these shapes for a long time, and struggled to remember the most basic rules of perspective. I am going to read through a couple of reference books and come back for another attempt shortly.