TASK 1 - DRAWING FROM MEMORY / REFERENCE
For this first part of the day we had to choose an image outside and stare at it for 2 minutes before going back to our desks to recreate it. I chose this image to the left because I enjoy drawing figures/characters, but after my second drawing I wished that I had chosen one of the other images which had more content / were busier. My first two drawings were very stylised, in the way I've been drawing people recently, the long legs, the small head etc. Although a few key elements of the original photograph were there: stripey shirt, glasses, curly hair, etc, for my third attempt I tried to capture the photograph more literally. This time I took a step back and spent longer focusing on the image as a whole, not just the central character. I tried to memorise the background, the proportions, the shadows and lines. My later recreations of this image are therefore less exaggerated, more closely resembling what I had been staring at. I found this task pretty difficult. When I draw from memory I'm usually creating something more abstract or stylised, compared to recreating an image, therefore it was a useful challenge for me to push myself.
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| 1st attempt |
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| Focusing on the background and other elements |
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| Final illustration |
TASK 2 - DRAWING FROM OBSERVATION
When we were asked to bring a plant in to draw I chose this one because of its interesting patterns and colouring - purple underside leaves and veins, variations of green. However this proved unnecessary when we were told we could only use black ink. This was actually a really helpful restriction, it enabled me to focus on shape and form, rather than getting carried away with colour. My plant had really lovely shaped leaves and its natural composition filled the frame nicely. For my first drawing I mapped out my plant using single lines of ink and then I went back and created shadows and tones with watered down ink washes. For my second drawing I did a very similar style but I switched the order, first I went in with the wash, making loose leaf shapes which I went back over and outlined. This second attempt was possibly my favourite, (shown left), I like the variations of tone and the bold lines. I used a liner brush in these illustrations which required extra control for me to achieve the ink strokes I wanted, I think this makes the drawings more sensitive. After these more concentrated illustrations I made some looser images, much faster and gestural, but still trying to get the basic shapes and lines of the plant. Although both very useful and challenging, I much preferred this exercise to the first one because I work better from observation than memory (I don't think my memory is very good)! Working from observation is hugely beneficial for studies like these because you can engage with the textures and shadows of the plant much more easily than if I was to draw from a photograph. I feel my drawings would not have been as lively if I was drawing from a 2D reference image.
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| Selection |
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| Accidental bleeding on the plant pot - quite like |
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| No washes, solid ink |
When we were asked to bring a plant in to draw I chose this one because of its interesting patterns and colouring - purple underside leaves and veins, variations of green. However this proved unnecessary when we were told we could only use black ink. This was actually a really helpful restriction, it enabled me to focus on shape and form, rather than getting carried away with colour. My plant had really lovely shaped leaves and its natural composition filled the frame nicely. For my first drawing I mapped out my plant using single lines of ink and then I went back and created shadows and tones with watered down ink washes. For my second drawing I did a very similar style but I switched the order, first I went in with the wash, making loose leaf shapes which I went back over and outlined. This second attempt was possibly my favourite, (shown left), I like the variations of tone and the bold lines. I used a liner brush in these illustrations which required extra control for me to achieve the ink strokes I wanted, I think this makes the drawings more sensitive. After these more concentrated illustrations I made some looser images, much faster and gestural, but still trying to get the basic shapes and lines of the plant. Although both very useful and challenging, I much preferred this exercise to the first one because I work better from observation than memory (I don't think my memory is very good)! Working from observation is hugely beneficial for studies like these because you can engage with the textures and shadows of the plant much more easily than if I was to draw from a photograph. I feel my drawings would not have been as lively if I was drawing from a 2D reference image.
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