Charcoal drawing of a coke bottle

12/11/14 - charcoal drawing of a coke bottle

I used this session to work on skills that I found the hardest and using materials that weren't my strongest. Because in earlier sessions I found that using charcoal was one of the things I needed to work on, and because I may need to use it in the future, I decided it would be helpful to concentrate on using charcoal to draw and re create another artists charcoal drawing of a coke bottle. I found that the first time I used charcoal I struggled quite a bit with trying to get accurate shading, and to get precise and refined edges. I found it quite hard to work without smudging my drawing as the charcoal smudged really easily.

In this session in the 12/11/14 I found that I could use the charcoal a little better as I had had a little more practice. I think that my drawing had good and accurate use of tone in most parts, which is an improvement from my key drawing at the start of term. However I found it really difficult to add small detail using the charcoal. And this time I took more are and tried not to smudge my work. Overall I think that the extra practice of using charcoal was good and I think I was quite accurate with the tone and shading but I don't think that the proportions and scale worked out too well as the coke bottle was out of proportion and the wrong shape. I think the bottom part of the glass bottle turned out quite well. I think that if I had worked on a bigger scale, then I could have achieved better results. I think that this session was helpful because it helped me to work on something that I found was a weakness at first.

First I drew the outline of the coke bottle, using some of the techniques used in other sessions, like drawing ellipses and measuring etc to try and get it as accurate as I could. I found drawing the outline quite difficult, and because of this, it has effected how the whole thing looks and the end result doesn't look as good as I would of hoped it would. I also think I should have drawn the coke bottle bigger as then it would make it easier to add the shading and add the smaller details like the writing on the label. I think it would have been better if I used a grey or other similar coloured paper because then the white light tones and the dark black tones would have worked better. I then started using the charcoal to add tone and shading to the coke bottle using the charcoal. I think that the shading worked quite well, and is an improvement from last time when I used charcoal for the key drawing. I added the more noticeable light and dark tones first, then added the middle tones. I tried to recreate the original image as well as I could.

Under Painting

5/11/2014 - In this session we were looking at under painting, which can be used for identifying tone in the image or object you are painting. If you start with this as a base layer then put white over the top, you can see that the tone shows through, making it easier to paint the final object. This technique is really useful as a base for a painting. 

Materials I used during this session were oil paints, white spirit to clean the brushes and to dilute and mix the paints as water and oil won't mix, and paintbrushes, and a rag to easily correct any mistakes while I was painting. Techniques I used during this session were painting, measuring and final study.

Areas of my work that I think worked well are my use of tone and shading of the cloth underpainting, but I don't think that my painting skills were too good, painting is one of my weaknesses and I don't particularly enjoy it as much. Overall I think my underpainting worked quite well and I will be able to use it if I need to in future.

Negative Space

1/10/14 - During this session we were looking at positive and negative space, and how this can help you to draw things more accurately by looking at the shapes of the negative spaces as well as the actual objects. Negative space is the spaces and gaps in between and around what your drawing. You can use the negative spaces to check whether what your drawing is in the right place or is in proportion or the right size etc. I drew a still life of various objects including stools, chairs, lamps and an easel which I thought would be very complicated and difficult to draw until I was shown how to draw just by looking at the negative space, using this new technique made it fairly easy to draw the objects and I think my drawing turned out pretty accurate and in proportion. 

The materials I used during this session were just a 2B pencil and paper. Techniques I used during this session were drawing and measuring, and using negative space. 

Areas of my work that I think worked well are using the negative spaces effectively, and creatin an in proportion and pretty accurate drawing. Areas of my work that could be improved are working quicker and completing the drawing so I could see the full effect but I still understand the concept of this idea and I can use this when drawing in the future. I extend my skills I used this in other sessions following this one and have looked at some other negative space drawings.

Pastel drawing of glass bottles

8/10/14 - In this session we were using pastels and charcoal to draw a still life of glass bottles. materials I used during this session were pastels, charcoal, sugar paper and a 2H pencil. techniques I used during this session were drawing, perspective, elipse, and positive and negative space. The formal elements I looked at were shape and form, tone, and colour.

Areas of my work that I think worked well are creating an accurate still life and how I have used the pastels. i had never really used pastels before so considering this was the first time, I was quite pleased with how my pastel drawing turned out. I think I have used accurate shading and have used the pastels and chalk well to make the glass look realistic. Areas of my work I think I could improve are drawing ellipses accurately and in proportion. to extend my skills I will look at other artist's pastel drawings and practice drawing ellipses.

Still life painting of fruit

22/10/14 - In this session we were asked to draw and paint a still life of fruit. Materials I used were charcoal, a 2H pencil, normal paper, cartridge paper, acrylic paints and hog hair brushes. in this session I used a combination of the techniques I had looked at in other sessions.Techniques used in this session were, timed sketching, quick charcoal sketching, painting, perspective, positive and negative space and proportion. the formal elements I looked at were shape and form, tone, and colour.

first of all we did a quick charcoal drawing of the fruit, which enabled us to identify different tones. Then we did a painting of the fruit, concentrating on different aspects like colour, shape, form and perspective.

Areas of my work that I think worked well are drawing the fruit to scale and using proportion. areas of my work that I think I need to work on are painting accurately and blending the colours better. To extend my skills I have looked at some other artists still life paintings.

To help extend my skills I looked at some other paintings of fruit to help me identify where some of my strengths and weaknesses are. I particularly liked this painting of a strawberry because it has really good use of tone and colour and looks realistic. The shapes and proportions are also accurate do the strawberry looks very effective.

Drawing with ink

17/09/2014 - In this session we were experimenting with using ink. first, we got into small groups and had to collect two natural forms from outside, such as leaves and conkers etc. we then put these on a plinth in the centre of our group, and arranged them so that each person had a good view of the objects to draw from. We used natural forms such as leaves, pebbles and conkers to draw from. We did exercises again that helped us to look at and think about the properties of the objects, such as drawing in 3 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds and with our opposite hand. I used a fine liner pen to draw outlines of the objects, but without taking the pen off the page, making sure I used one continuous line, creating a 'web' of the objects with lines through it. I then used water to add tonal detail to the drawing, this is my work:

I found drawing the objects quite easy and think the shapes and proportions were accurate, but found it difficult not to take the pen off the paper. I was quite pleased with this work, however, the next task was to draw the same objects, but using a dip pen and ink. This was the first time I had used this technique so I found this really difficult to control, and also struggled with adding tone by cross hatching and I wasn't really pleased with the results. To extend my skills I will practice using cross hatching, and using a dip pen and ink. I will also look at some artists that use ink.

I have looked at some other artists ink drawings, and have found quite a few that I like and think look really good. I can take inspiration and learn from these existing examples to improve my own work. I think that the cross hatching works well on these examples, and cross hatching is something I need to improve.

This image in particular is very similar to the piece of work I created, as it uses both ink drawing, and tone which has been added with water, and the subject of the work is a natural form.

Cross hatching

Charcoal study of keys

10/09/2014 ~ Charcoal study of keys

During this session I studied a set of three keys, and produced a charcoal drawing of them. This is my piece of work.

This was the first time I had used charcoal so it took me a while to get used to using it, and although it kept smudging easily, I eventually got the hang of working with the charcoal and I was quite pleased with my drawing. I liked using charcoal because it allows you to get a range of different tones and to blend them together well. It was also quicker than pencil shading and I liked the style it created. I think I might use charcoal again, but will practice using it more by doing another drawing and experimenting with it so that I can achieve better results before using it more in my work. Something that I learned from this session was to make sure I start shading from the top left hand side and work across, instead of starting on the right because I kept smudging the parts that I had already done, and had to re do them. To improve, I could complete the rest of my drawing, taking more care and time, and also look at other artist's work who use charcoal.

The way we studied the keys, and the exercises we did before hand really helped me to think more about the shapes and features of the keys, which made it easier for me to draw them.

I looked at some artists that use charcoal, to compare my own work with theirs. My drawing that I produced looked very similar to the style of Jim Dine's charcoal drawings of tools, which I quite like the style of. I think that if my drawing was more refined and complete, and had more contrast, then it would look much better.Here are some images of his work.

http://x-hizashi-x.deviantart.com/art/Jim-Dine-Tool-Study-202350239

http://rawdesigns2.wordpress.com/category/jim-dine/

http://www.starr-art.com/exhibits/Dine/

Overall, I was quite impressed with how my charcoal drawing of keys turned out.