"Drawing Towards Design"
Week 1 at Art School - p.2
Gosh, This was SUCH an intense day. We were drawing non-stop for about two hours - break - another two and a half hours. I could hardly make coherent sentences after - it was a GREAT experience though. Really opened up my mind.
Here's what we did:
First, 16 little quick line drawings of a pen cap, and another 16 of a chilli pepper (inside and out).
Next, 64 very quick (10-15 seconds) drawings based on these 16. Using the formal methods of Exaggerating, Distorting, Simplifying, Enlarging, Reducing, Repeating, Rotating, Combining, Cross-referencing, Layering. The first set are based on the pen cap, and the second set are based on the chilli pepper.
Lunch break. Then, analyse the two sets of 64 drawings, and use the formal methods again to make a single set of 32 new drawings. This time we were allowed to combine the pen and chilli derived information. After the 32, refine (still using the formal methods) to 16.
Then, doing similar but paying more attention to layout, negative spaces, blocking out spaces etc, reduce to 8. And FINALLY refine and reduce to 4 final "complete" drawings.
If anyone is interested, the brief is here. As homework I have a project extension which is to take four to five elements from these completed drawings, use the formal methods and then to produce six A5 sized colour paintings. PHEW!
15 comments:
Hi Mithi, thanks for sharing this. It´s such an inspiring drawing exercise, I could easily get lost in it (I think I will, actually), and I love your results. I wish you good luck all the way through your art school experience!
Wow! And here we've been thinking 6 to 8 drawings on a grid page were something. Very impressive work, Mithi. I have to confess I'm tempted to try it, too...
These are really fantastic! I came to your blog via the Everyday Matters blog - one of the folks had your link on their blog. I am so jealous you are in art school - I'm gonna favorite your blog so i can watch your progress - Amazing what you can do with a pen cap and a chili pepper!!
WHEW is right!! I don't know diddly about formal method, refine, exaggerate or anything like that -- but what I could see is some refinement of line and form and after all that sketching -- some wonderfully done work! GREAT JOB and I hope you're recovering!!! LOL
OMG...this is just SO cool! This is great...I'm jealous. What a great opportunity you have. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much Mithi for sharing your class work. It is so much fun to see the methods being used and your incredible amount of drawing! I personally hope that you will continue to update us and allow us to follow along with you. I am going to get a pen and cap and start NOW!
Mithi, what do these mean:
"Exaggerating, Distorting, Simplifying, Enlarging, Reducing, Repeating, Rotating, Combining, Cross-referencing, Layering"?
I can probably figure out some of them, but what would be the difference between reducing and simplifying?
The difference between "reducing" and "simplifying" is making something smaller in size, without reducing its complexity (reducing) as opposed to actually reducing something's complexity by showing less detail, but not necessarily smaller in size (simplifying). Our tutor didn't go into the details of what each term meant (I'm still not entirely sure what he mean's by cross-referencing - must go and ask him). Basically he just wanted us to get on with the drawing, but making sure each set was in some way connected with the last, and that we were stretcing our imagination and really trying to make the most of the source material (in this case the source material at each stage was the drawings from the previous stage).
Hope that makes some sense
Mithi
I love your works.
It's good.
I also study.
kuriyama
I really enjoyed looking at your art projects. I like how you made use of the page too.
Lydia
Oh my goodness! These are fabulous. I can see how valuable these studies would be and would love to take the time to do them. I hope you keep posting your art school work--it gives me the chance to learn through your work. What fun! Thanks!
Wow, what an interesting exercise! I can definitely see why you were worn out afterwards. Its really neat to see the progression in complexity.
Please, please continue to tell us what you're doing in school -- though it must be tough for you, when your work is so intense. It's so interesting and useful. I'm eager to see what the paintings will look like.
These are amazing and an exercise in drawing that I will definitely be trying. 6 hours of drawing...pure heaven! LOL
MD
Hi there, I´ve just started reading your blog from the start and I can already see that there´s quite a bit to learn from you. Thanks for being so detailed about your courses and work. I would love to do the same stuff.
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