2. Project: Detailed observation (Check and log)

CHECK AND LOG

Which drawing media did you find most effective to use, for which effects?

• most effective in terms of fast tonal capturing of the object to me is my hate/love charcoal.
• effective in terms of vibrant luminosity are watercolours/inks, they feel very different – much more pigmented – than watercolour pencils
• in terms of a sense of a real physical body I like the matte gouaches/poster colours
• for soft effects and a bit of fuzzy atmosphere pastel pencils should work well as do pastels in general
• effective for carrying in my pocket everywhere together with my tiny sketchbook are pencils

What sort of marks work well to create tone, pattern and texture? Make notes beside some sample marks.

tone, pattern, texture marks (I/II)

tone, pattern, texture marks (II/II)

Tone:

ballpoint in a light sweeping movement with very tight hatching can create a tone almost like a pencil, just more solid

stipples/dots for the lightest shades within light areas; Staedler Duo pen – the other side maked very large stipples but even (I, 3rd from above)

a dry mop brush with dryish poster colour creates a cloudy tone (see II, lower left)

straight water colours or poster paints (wet) (could also be good as an underdrawing under oil pastels or pastels)

Pattern:

think of pattern like van Gogh’s ink drawing of fields, almost like a pattern on a piece of cloth (probably not what he saw, but what he felt would work well)

it could be even something weird like the oval pattern created by holding a brush at 90 degree with dryish poster paint (see II, lower right)

graphic duo pen (Staedler) accentuated with wet brush (see I, 2nd from above) is quite striking and vivid, because the line thickness varies with each stroke

Texture:

a bit spongelike: stipples with end of brush (90 degrees) (see II, middle right)

hair, probably fur or anything with lots of parallels: (II, upper right) medium dry brush with poster paint

Did you enjoy capturing details or are you more at home creating big broad brush sketches?

Not sure. Probably detail? Because I tend to struggle with the big spaces (like background). But I do enjoy sweeping brushstrokes when I see it in a picture.

Look at the composition of the drawings you have done in this project. Make some sketches and notes about how you could improve your composition.

Composition alternatives and improvements

Left spread: I quite liked the awkward cut of my composition which was somewhat random. After trying a close up of the peonies which could look quite good – like a Chinese watercolour – I added some background detail into the line drawing of peonies. It takes away a bit from the focus of the foreground but it gives the whole thing some sense of space and completeness. I will consider.

Below I changed another line drawing of a peony with tulips and an iris and added my mum into the armchair behind. I think this could be a great understate way of making a portrait through a flower bouquet – especially with someone like my mum, who loves her garden so much. The best one, I found was the one directly below the printout of the original (lower left corner). The head there is smaller than the peony but it’s as if she sits in the flowers. The right side can be cropped as the couch is really not important.

Right spread: The flower vase could profit from some background unless the background is plain but varied, like in Chagall’s Creation of Man.

Below the rose in the little vase with the shell. Urgh. Simply awful. A forlorn spaceship rose – lost in space though. Tried the conventional portrait cropping instead of landscape. I think I don’t like the entire thing. Why a shell with a rose anyway? When I cropped it differently and focused on the shell, with the rose being a side note, I started to like it better. A portrait of a shell.

Lower right: I think a wee bit more of the metal lamp base on the right might be nice, but not as much as I put in in the composition right below the original mini-printout. The whole chopping board from the original almost centre has something. Quite like it actually. But I just did it today. Probably tomorrow I can see it better. Or there could be a focus on the apples with a cropped board.

Did doing a line drawing get you to look at space more effectively?

I started looking at details of the subject matter but then realised that I only had a limited number of tries – a line in ink cannot be undone. So then I started to look at the overall thing I wanted to draw – how big is it going to be, where do I have to place the individual parts on the paper. For the last drawing in ink dip pen I had to make a pencil sketch underneath as I was sure I would get lost in line detail and would lose sight of the overall shape/size.

I am all for a slight pencil sketch underneath things these days. I made one for the apples on the board. Earlier I would have just picked up the permanent ballpoint pen and started away – often wasting several sheets of paper in the process. Picasso did underdrawings in pencil because it makes sense – why oh why didn’t I before?