Thursday, November 23, 2006

Natural Object 3D project

Week 8 at Art School - p.2

Last week we were set homework to go away and pick a natural object and do some drawing studies of it. I chose a dried artichoke thistle (originally given to me by Sunshine's mum - cut from their back garden) because I'd done a colour pencil study of one last year, and really liked its shape and texture (on the left my original colour study, on the right the dried one I used today).



We came in today armed with our studies and then went on to do some abstractions and started drawing some ideas for 3D objects based on our studies and abstractions. Our tutor also suggested writing words that came to mind that either described the object or some emotion related to it. We were not constrained to the original object and could go off in any tangent we wanted. The excercise isn't to build a model of our chosen object, but to use it as inspiration.


I was quite inspired by how the soft bristles were bundled in the main flower, the spiky skin, the way the spikes followed a very geometric curve around the bulb, and also by the radial quality of the bottom of the flower. I went with those concepts and started experimenting with bits of paper, card, paper plates and pins.

Warning: slide show may take a while to upload - 55 pictures!


I now have till next Thursday to made something more substantial from my tests, and present it at my first ever critique! Wish me luck ...

Links: project brief and notes.

8 comments:

Nina Johansson said...

I´m still following your art escapades, I love your ideas and the way you work with sketches and tests to see where you end up. You´re a great source of inspiration! Thanks for posting!

Anonymous said...

It is so much fun going to art school with you! Thanks so much for sharing your assignments and your work. Good luck on your presentation!

andrea joseph's sketchblog said...

Great post Mithi - really great to se the whole process. AND the final result looks really good, too. Lovely colour.

Lin said...

AWESOME! Rich rich rich and your illustrations could be in any botanical book!! SUPER JOB!

Anonymous said...

Mithi- I am very interested in all that you are doing in your design classes. I too, am trying to get through the end of the semester....but, I am going to create a link to you on my blog to remind me that once all the school work is over to come back and read through all your posts! I'm actually going to be teaching a beginning design course at my university next semester and think your projects will be a great inspiration....

Rachel Murphree said...

Mithi -- what a beautiful drawing and i love seeing the slideshow and your creation in progress. what a neat and challenging project!

Alison said...

This is so interesting to see the development ideas from a single starting point - I know I could do this at home but it's hard to be so disciplined without a course - still I really enjoy seeing what you're doing.

Jana Bouc said...

The original illustration is beautiful. But doing that kind of brain storming and taking things beyond the first impression or just duplicating the actual object seems like a really important process. Thanks for sharing it!