Portrait exercises

Last Thursday (yes, I am a week behind on updating the drawing module work) we spent the day doing portraits in pairs. I paired up with the lovely Mrs Charlie who you see above (no guarantee of resemblance!). Our first task had been to take it in turns to draw a detailed portrait of the other - on for ten minutes; then swapping; posing for ten minutes; etc. We each did 4 or so sessions, so the drawing above took about 40 minutes in total. Gary the tutor was very keen for us not to 'draw' per se, but just do a lot of measuring (pencil at arms length kind of stuff) and marking off where things were, and building up on that. Most of us did a bit of that to get proportions right, but then started drawing in details. I think though what he had really wanted was for us to just keep measuring and making marks, and hoping that that would eventually form itself into a picture of the person. I understand this now ... and I think I might have another go at this with Sunshine as my model.

Then we had to look only at our drawing, and generate 6 new smaller drawings which were, from top left; continuous line, blind contour, only tonal, left handed, using different media, and last but not least, from memory. I think the continous line one is my favourite.


Then the exercise was repeated, but looking at the real life model. We were being quite pressured for time by this point and you can see that we had both started drawing at the same time (Charlie's looking away from me) as we didn't have the time to take it in turns. It was fun though - and we were having a real laugh! I managed to draw her smiley face blind and make her teeth look like a mustache (!) whereas in one of her drawings she managed to make my nose look like a pig's! Very very funny .... but we didn't really care. It was all about loosening up and trying things that we don't normally do and looking at 'drawing' in different ways.


The last exercise was to start with a full portrait and then make each progressive one simpler, and simpler ... and see what you're left with...


I must say I struggled with this whole session as it was several things that are mental blocks for me - drawing people, drawing from an 'alive' subject, and on a couple of them, drawing faces from memory. EEEkkk!!! But I'm pushing my comfort zones, and that can only be a good thing ... And it was really nice to have Charlie as a partner - as we mostly struggled with the same things and could push each other on ...

We had a fab time at the drawing class today - I'll hopefully update all about that tomorrow when I've managed to get hold of some good pictures of what we've produced. It was also last day of term, before three weeks of Easter break! Yippee!!! I shall be celebrating my birthday on Monday not worrying about handing in assignments (although a lot of Easter break will be spent on the Narrative and Sequence module book project) or having to wake up early the next day ... aaaahhhhhh ..... lovely ....

Bookforms

We spent the last two days on a bookforms workshop. I made something titled 'Choreosophy in Blue'. Choreosophy is Greek, meaning 'the wisdom of circles' and my book is based on circles. Our brief had been to make something with just shapes and colours, no text, but thinking about pacing, rhythm, and structure. There were some really creative things that people managed to make in a day and a half. Here's mine:

This is what the whole thing looks like all concertina-ed out.

More pictures (with some macro shots) here.

I also did a small mock-up of another book which is a looping story of shapes and colours.

Crafting hands

So there you have it, these are the originals from which the final drawing was done. Sorry for the lightness - they were done with quite hard pencils on an off-white cartridge paper sketchbook.

Thank you to everyone who has been leaving me messages about sewing-drawing. It appears I have the special plate necessary to be able to do this on our sewing machine, and I've also invested in some embroidery hoops ... really excited about having a go!

HANDcrafted

So this is my response to last Thursday's homework. I sat down and drew lots of crafting people and hands based on the photos I'd taken on Monday night at the stitch'n'bitch group, and was playing around with the hands and have come up with what you see above. I was trying to give it the feeling of a lot of activity - because, honestly, that IS what it looked like - a flurry of active hands making things! If you look carefully there is a cutter, two knitters, and three crocheters ... (click on the picture to enlarge to a better view). I quite like how the original sketches came out as well but I haven't managed to take decent scans of them - they are quite light, having been done with a 3H pencil on some off-white paper. Sunshine says there is a possibility that he can take photographs, although that has to wait till daylight ... so I'll try and upload some photos tomorrow of the original drawings.

My intention had also been to make a kind of poster-thing to advertise the group; using fabric and sewing as part of the drawing - didn't have time to do that, but I think that is definitely something I'm going to have go at over Easter. Anyone out there can give me tips on freehand sewing machine drawing?

EDIT: I think I wasn't very clear with my question (thank you for your drawing of a sewing machine though Shirley!). I have my own sewing machine (well, I have Sunshine's one). I would like to learn how to 'draw' using a sewing machine - freehand stitching I think its called? Like these three illustrators do. The mobile I received as part of the swap had some too - maybe I should ask its maker for some tips...

(Not so) creative crocheting

The lovely Milla put me on to this ... A new Stitch'n'bitch group round the corner form where I live! And there I learnt to CROCHET!!!

Notice the bad crocheting at the bottom (beginning of the evening) and better at the top (end of the night).

I learnt from this lovely lady called Amy who is a GREAT teacher, and she even loaned me her wool and needle so I can keep practising for the next month till the next stitch'n'bitch.


I'm SO glad I went - I'd been cranky at home all day yesterday - I think I'm coming down with something - feeling very frustrated juggling lots of different projects and not seeming to get anywhere with any of them ... blah blah blah ... This was SUCH the lovely thing to do ... Meet local crafting ladies and do a bit of crafting and socialising. I'd actually gone in with my sketch book so I could draw people and then use it to do something for my drawing in location homework. But its difficult to draw people's hands moving so fast! So I took lots of photos instead and may do something with those ... and I learnt to crochet! Here's the proof (notice open sketchbook in the background):


There was all sorts going on - crocheting, knitting, cutting, gluing, sewing, etc etc ... pictures here of you have a facebook account. Come along next month!

Exquisite Corpses - update

Remember this from last week, and the sneak peak? Well, I've finally managed to finish them ... Meet, erm... 'Sweetie', and erm... 'Circus' .... Ok OK I'm not very original with names ... maybe some of you have better ideas? Yes, I know, my paper mache skills are deplorable ....











I'm not quite sure yet what I'm going to do with them, The original brief was to take at least two characters and do a narrative ... I think I might just 'play' with them for a bit and see if a narrative suggests itself. Then draw some backgrounds and photograph them in front, interacting to act out the narrative ... hmmmm.... Easter homework ...

Carwash

This morning Sunshine and I went out for a lovely walk to Ashton Court. On the way we visited the carwash ('cause the car REALLY needed a wash!). After Thursday's drawing on location stint, I was determined to get into the habit of drawing whenever I was out so I took my new handbound sketchbook with me. Can't say these are the best drawings I've ever done, but I know I need to do this to break through the fear of drawing in public without a care whether the drawing is 'good' or not ... its all about the practise, practise practise ... On the right is Sunshine looking out the car window while we were in the carwash. I must say, it was no where NEAR as exciting as I remembered as a child (the whole car shaking to the thudthudthudthud of the spinning washy-things!). Infact, the car hardly shook at all, and I can't say the machine did the best job of cleaning - I think we may have to do a bit more scrubbing with a bucket and sponge tomorrow ...

Still, it was a lovely day out in the gorgeous sunshine, walking through the park, looking at the deer and the trees (and contemplating a possible wedding venue?). What a lovely day to start my birthday month! Oh yes, its been such an incredible year this last 12 months, and I'm so SO happy to be where I am, doing what I'm doing, that I intend to be excitable all of this month (hah! like I'm not always quite excitable!)... ;)

And what better way to start the month than to be mentioned on not one, but TWO other blogs ...

The lovely Suzanne over at 'An open [sketch]book' also teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Interior Architecture. They have set up blogs for the students (which I think is SUCH the fab idea) and Suzanne featured me on their blog as someone to go and have a look at. What a compliment!

Then, yesterday, my foundation final major project stuff was featured on Easternblot (only biochemists will get the joke), a blog celebrating the art of science. Thank you Eva!

I LOVE March :)

Dreaming of the Alps...

I do very little digital work, preferring to be hands-on handmade. Still, its a useful skill to have and I'm keen to learn everything I can while at college. We had a photoshop workshop today, and although I'm fairly familiar with the program, the wonderful tutor showed me a few tricks I hadn't seen before. While I was playing around with the software, I made the digital collage above based on one of yesterday's in-location drawings ...

I quite like how it came out ... you can just about imagine this bearded fellow sitting at a cafe in Bristol with his cigarette and coffee, and headphones on, listening to the gentle sounds of ... "Yodelers of the Swiss Alps" ... or something ;)

Drawing workshop - in location

Woohoo! Two posts in one day!

Today's workshop consisted of us being sent off into the big bad world to draw people in location - and I must say this was something I found incredibly difficult. Drawing people? From life? In public? Quickly before they change position or wonder off? Phew! Such a challenge for me! The resounding verdict was - need to do more, much, much, more ...

We spent the day out drawing people doing stuff in the city, then reconvened in the afternoon for a crit. We talked about practicing until we can do it so quick that just a few gestural lines captures the person, and about looking more at the person rather than the paper. We talked about adding just a few objects or bits of architecture to put the person in context, we talked about highlighting things by using colours, and we also talked about editing what we drew - drawing only what was essential .... I really enjoy crits with out tutor Gary...

Above are some of the drawings I'm a bit more proud of, and below, a selection of the others.

Homework for next week is to take one of the in location drawings (or to make some more) and produce one finished illustration.

And while we were out drawing, Charlotte and I wandered onto a queue of people outside the bookstore. We could have drawn the queue of people, but it was far more interesting to find out what was causing the queue ... Sir David Attenborough!!! Oh My God were we excited!!! My camera batteries had just gone bust so the two of us stood there and drew him instead - got a few funny looks - and the press guy with his film camera loomed over Charlotte's shoulder and filmed her drawing ;) ... My hero ... my excuse for the bad likeness? I was too excited!

Drawing workshop - Exquisite Corpses

The picture above is a small selection from the pictures we drew last week during our drawing workshop. We were basically playing a game of 'consequences' (do people call it something else outside of the UK?) ... otherwise known as "exquisite corpses". Fold the paper up, draw a head, pass it on so the head doesn't show, next person draws the body; next the legs and next the feet. To start us of we were also given themes - 'confectionery' for the head, 'geographical' for the torso, 'delicatessen' for the legs, and 'botanical' for the feet.

Once we got going, we could do any sort of head, and then had to give a prompt to the next person along doing the body, etc etc... There were some quite bizzare monsters that were born in the studios that day! Here are some of my favourites:

I did the head on this one

Here I did the geographical body

Again did the head, and then prompted the next person to do 'circus'

Sorry for the bad photo quality - theres a not a lot of natural light in that room. More pictures here on our UWE illustration 07-10 facebook account (I think you have to have a facebook account to see them).

Anyways, afterwards, we talked about why had done the exercise, and the things that came up included; learning to work collaboratively (that not a lot of illustrators do, but is worth doing); letting go of control over your work; generating ideas when you're having 'drawing-block'; and just loosening up our creative muscles.

The homework for the week was to use two or more of the characters to create new work or a narrative (oh yes, character development was one of the other intended outcomes of the exercise). Most people have been doing three drawings/paintings. I took a bit of a sidewards route (partly because mutant monster characters are not really my thing, and I was having problems engaging with the project and thinking up narratives for the characters to be in) ... and its taken me longer than I'd imagined it would ... so its still work in progress... In the meantime, have a sneak peek:


Will post more pictures once I've finished the little things ...