I’ve spent all afternoon on my still life homework for the holidays… an exercise in two point perspective. An hour of reading, a couple of outline sketches and some more research led to a couple of hours doing all the construction with vanishing points at the zenith and nadir rather than on the horizon line – but I kinda like the effect. It then took another hour or so to enlarge, trace and shade the image, and here it is. Those that know, feel free to critique!
Another part of my Extended Diploma in Art & Design course is a photography block. This term’s work followed the theme of ‘manmade’ and the challenge was to incorporate some of the items we’d drawn over the Christmas break into a digital studio photoshoot, followed by image manipulation in Photoshop. I chose to use a manual coffee grinder as that had been the most interesting shape to draw, and my imagination took me off on a flight of fancy – so I emptied the cutlery drawer and with a bit of jiggery-pokery, I came up with this:
If you would like your own photographic quality print of this image (without the copyright notice) then please contact me using the email button in the sidebar.
That’s another block of life drawing finished! This term we’ve looked at the paintings and sculptures of Antony Gormley and used wax and ink to paint the human form. This is the second piece from Week 2 – I’ve already posted my work from Week 3 here. I’m particularly pleased with the crouching figure. Many thanks to our model for his fortitude!
This second image is the result of a four 40 minute sittings over two weeks, starting with a measured outline, then addition of oil pastels for colour using David Bomberg’s paintings as an influence. In the second session, we then broke down the oil pastel with turpentine before adding the background and working into the figure more. The figure isn’t dark enough with the addition of the background, so some of the form is lost as a result. Many thanks to our model for allowing me to share the image (and for sitting so patiently!).
It’s Friday, and another mixed media lesson 🙂
This week we had to do a candle wax resist rendition of the still life – clear wax on whitish paper made the initial stages very tricky. However, as the dye wash revealed, I did fairly well! A bit of charcoal and a smidge of oil pastel here and there, and I was done.
I’ve done another still life this week – this time using oil pastel resist technique. The objects were drawn in oil pastels first and then a dye colour wash applied for the fore and background. A bit of bleach, charcoal and chalk later and I got this:
Here’s my life drawing from this week at college. We are experimenting with expressive strokes in black Quink ink washes, and this week added in rust colours using oil pastels. The black Quink is ideal for this as it is full of every blue and brown colour you could wish with a few grey tones chucked in as well! I used a blue, orange and brown for the rest of the colouring, blending as I went, over the top of the tonal ink washes.
Here’s a pic of this mornings session at college working BIG – A1 portrait size mixed media still life. The colour wash used textile dyes, a bit of bleach and then charcoal and white chalk embellishments.
And here’s what we were drawing…
I’m doing a 3D module at college at the moment, and we have to design something with one moving part, to be made out of wood/acrylic. Of course I had ambitious ideas, and decided to mock up my proposal out of 5mm foam board to check that it worked. So here is my 3D, working, foam board wave machine, starring a kebab stick!
I’d love to post a video of it in action… but I haven’t quite got the right facilities to do that just yet 🙂
This took about 90 minutes to make, with no templating or pattern. The base is A5 size, the discs the diameter of a 10 pence piece secured with a bit of glue. It was really exciting to give the kebab stick it’s first turn and see the wave pattern go across!
It’s the end of term and hand-in time – and here’s what I’m handing in for my still life module. Hopefully you can appreciate that it’s a close up of a hydrangea head, and see that we’ve been concentrating on learning about tone and form this term. I’m really pleased with it, and once again the charcoal ground works wonders!
Well I’ve just finished the first life drawing module of the course, and we were assessed today. Indications are I’m doing very well… Perhaps you would like to judge for yourself? These are phone photos of my drawings – I’ll get better pics when I get the drawings home and use a proper camera. By kind permission of our life model.
Life Drawing - Week 1 (2x 20m)
Life Drawing - Week 3 (2x 45m)
Life Drawing - Week 4 (2x 45m)
Life Drawing - Weeks 6 & 7
The last one is our final piece – three sittings (45m, 45m and 60m) in (more or less) the same pose. It was great to hear one of my classmates comment ‘it looks so 3D’ 🙂 I like working on the charcoal ground – it seems to help me capture the form of the figure much better.