Tracings from and sketches of heads from Andrew Loomis, ‘Drawing the Head and Hands’. I wanted to feel where the lines were when constructing the head so I used layout paper and a pencil to trace some of the head drawings in the book. I thought that by tracing a few drawings, it would improve my memory and maybe muscle memory to quickly and accurately sketch the human head with accurate and convincing proportions. I found this useful as a ‘hand-holding’ exercise to show me how different skull shapes can lead to the variety of facial features I see on a daily basis but I then I quickly noticed without the safety net, my drawings became distorted and become sidetracked by what I think I should do with proportions out of habit, and the instinct was strong to pull away from the method Loomis used which I had been tracing initially. I think it was a good experience, but I felt it was best to learn to construct the human head myself and gradually build up the technique so it becomes instinctive.
Figure construction lines and lines of movement and flow.
Leading on nicely from Exercise 3, where I produced a portrait from memory of Van Gogh’s portrait, is an area of research exploring artists self-portraits in the historical period. I began my research with Rembrandt who, according to https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/kenwood/history-stories-kenwood/rembrandt-self-portrait/, completed approximately 80 self-portraits in his lifetime through paintings, etchings and drawings. The article on this website was very informative into how his last portrait was produced and I can see that this portrait was a culmination of all the painting techniques he had built up in his artistic career. The various techniques of brushwork used to produce his last portrait range from dry-brushing and scumbling to laying down thick strokes of oil paint. The colour palette he used in his self portraits were not usually vibrant, and he made use of dark shadows adding mystery and atmosphere to his paintings. There always seemed to be a single source of light which illuminated the facial features in his self-portraits and he also painted with mostly soft edges where the tonal gradation was gradual and gentle rather than line-focused and flat block tones like Picasso. after reading background information on Rembrandt, I feel like he, like many others, conveyed his difficult emotions through his self-portraits. The dull, earthy and moody essence of his self-portraits may have been a reflection of the personal difficulties he had in his life.
In comparison, when I look at how Vincent Van Gogh depicts his personal struggles through his brush strokes, I see a completely different approach to his self-portrait. The self-portrait, 1887, that I attempted to draw previously, has a series of individual rough, dabs, stabs, short and long brushstrokes that are swirled and warped in an impressionistic style. although his earlier portraits are more like Rembrandt’s in tone, the colour palette of Van Gogh’s 1887 self-portrait is lighter, with hints of blues and reds; there also seems to be a lighter feel to the self-portrait due to the lack of heavy dark tones representing shadows. Similarly, both artists adopt the same style of pose for their self-portraits: shoulder height and above, sometimes with their canvas, turned slightly away from straight on to the viewer. I also notice that both artists used oil for their chosen medium.
Moving on to investigate more contemporary self-portraiture I was quite intrigued by the wonderful and again, vast variety of styles that some artists had adopted to represent themselves. A few differences I have noticed comparing to historic work:
Some contemporary self-portraiture seems to emit a huge expression of emotion through the artist’s message and overall feeling they deliver through their work. Some paintings and drawings I saw in my studies were not subtle and were very obvious and loud in delivering a feeling or expression on behalf of the artist. The colour palettes are sometimes very vibrant and clashing. Photography, film, three-dimensional models and digital artwork are just a few of the types of media that are now used to create the self-portraits whereas historically, it was predominantly pencil or oil painting I believe. Mixed media has great advantages in pulling together a concept and it seems that contemporary artists have an even wider selection of media to choose from than say Rembrandt or Van Gogh ever did. I feel that although historic self-portraits from Rembrandt and Van Gogh displayed emotions and subtle clues about their difficulties, some contemporary artists feel liberated it seems and do not hold back in their demonstration of feelings or self-representation through self-portraiture. It looks like modern self expression is liberating for the artist, where they face less discrimination compared to cultural and moral restrictions in the historic era. Contemporary self-portraiture seems to offer an artist a completely ‘blank canvas’ for self-expression in a time where personal opinions, stories, thoughts and feelings are accepted amongst a diverse and colourful culture.
Experience and research shows there is no particular way to draw or paint a face. It seems historically, there was an ‘acceptable’ way to paint, and generations of artists pushed those boundaries as time went by, exploring new mediums and styles of painting and drawing. Art movements where formed then superseded by other boundary-pushing movements. Below is a selection of photos that I found when looking through my art history book: E.H Gombrich, The Story Of Art, Phaidon Press Ltd, 1984. Each one of these drawings or paintings gave me an insight into how historical artists have represented the human head. I’ve noted varying techniques and their comparisons here, such as: light or heavy weight applied to the pencil/brush, a light/dark colour palette, realistic/abstract/cubist/impressionistic, three-dimensional/flat, fast and erratic/slow and diligent, block tones/delicate varied tones, sharpness/softness, structurally realistic/warped or distorted, short sharp paint strokes/ long winding strokes, delicate and transparent/ brash and opaque, no background detail/heavily detailed backdrop, tone dominant/line dominant.
I am not really surprised about the variety of different ways artists have chosen to draw heads or self-portraits since man started learning to manipulate materials and make marks for an intended outcome. I feel like it is human nature to want to create with the hands and put our own expression into it. Of all the people who have learnt to manipulate materials, there is considerable variation in experiences, society and culture that have influenced the artist or practitioner’s views and techniques to execute a concept on the human head. I am really intrigued how some of these more abstract drawings and paintings were accepted or viewed at the time when other artists were producing incredibly life-life pieces. I would really like to experiment with a variety of these styles with my drawings of heads and see how it feels to produce a piece of work like this but also how I could develop it and take an idea further.
Roussaeu and Matisse’s style of painting remind me of Frida Kahlo’s work and self-portraits.
Contemporary also offers a rich variety of differences in recordings of the human head. Of course, we are present in the modern day, as as such, further exploration into producing studies of the head/face have taken place and with it, technology has introduced another format in which to mix media. Drawings and paintings produced digitally offer a different expression than those drawn or painted in the more traditional fashion. I have enjoyed looking at contemporary works on this topic and particularly liked the clever use of prints, paper cut outs, mixed media, photography, collage and loose representational work to describe a person’s face and/or head. Artists are also using unwanted salvaged scrap materials to produce their composition, such as Nick Gentry and his face paintings on wood and computer components with oil paint.
I have noticed that a few contemporary artists explore their sexual orientation, social status, mental well-being etc. through their portraiture and these often offer vivid uses of colour and surrealist or abstract pieces. I also noticed that contemporary works depicting the face or head can often be seen in works that are meant to make a statement, generate debate and discussion or even explore the current generation and its struggles being experienced. For example, when I look at Banksy’s graffiti work, he intentionally masks, pixelates, adapts or omits the faces of those he paints to make a statement and contribute to the message of his work.
After watching a video on the National Portrait Gallery website (link in bibliography) it encouraged me to think about why portraits or drawings and paintings of faces produced? Is the focus more on the sitter/subject than the artist and their style? It seems that faces seem to evoke a lot of emotion and judgement from the viewer and the artist can use this to their advantage when trying to evoke a particular feeling to the drawing. I see some contemporary work, much like some historic, as a great expression of the artists perception of the face he or she is recreating in their work. It’s as if they are combining their personality with the sitters physical and emotional attributes.
E.H Gombrich,The Story of Art, Phaidon Press Ltd 1984
The obvious starting point for me, to look at historical studies of the human structure, would be the detailed and thorough studies by Da Vinci. His attention to detail and realistic recreation of the anatomy of the body borders on scientific illustration due to his studious dissection work and detailed drawings, although, he utilised his anatomical drawings to great extent for his successful masterpieces which followed his studies.
When looking at contemporary art, and comparing it to historical anatomical drawings, I’ve found more of an abstract take on human anatomy, rather than a recreation of more realistic anatomical drawings; contemporary anatomical structure related artwork seems to be created with lots of different techniques to the traditional drawing method used historically and some with a vivid colour palette. I see a wealth of variation in colour, mixed media, mark-making techniques, abstract illustration, layering techniques etc. If I look at work by Lubos Plny, his anatomical drawings seem to be an eclectic mix of illustrations which exude a sense of cartoon-style execution; these drawings are more of an abstract representation and creative expression than preparatory studies for realistic figure drawing.
It does intrigue me as to how nude art was perceived historically. As discussed briefly in my previous research for Part 4, I am aware that their were certain moral and religious values that were upheld during the time when nude figure studies were gaining popularity. Interestingly, conducive to the historical opinions of the immoral association of a painted nude portrait, The eBook I found online (line below) discusses how Pre-Raphaelite artists couldn’t afford (I’m guessing financially) to display work which would not find a buyer because of the subjects ‘pornographic connotations’ painting. Furthermore, some artists were thought to have added clothing or draperies to their subjects as they had not attracted interest from buys because of the nude content previously. Obviously, time and therefore, opinions have moved on hugely since this era where artists found it difficult to express themselves with the nude figure in their work unless for pure scrutiny and biological analysis.
An article I found interesting, by Brian Yoder at https://artrenewal.org/Article/Title/nudity-in-art-a-virtue-or-vice, proposed the moment you clothe a subject in your drawing or painting, you document a specific period in time, giving the work context within an era. If the artist did not wish to link the subject to a specific time, place, genre, then using a plain sheet or drape would eliminate this association and ensure that the subject remained timeless.
There is of course a great deal of misunderstanding about nude art and nude figure drawing, even today. I myself had preconceptions and imagery of what nude art was about until I started Part 4 of the course. It has enabled me to be more open-minded about why artists study the human form and what they may learn from their experiments of capturing the figure through different lines of enquiry. I also understand, after attending collective life drawing classes, why historically, there may have been negative connotations revolved around groups of people sat around a naked figure, it can be strange to experience for the first time. The idea that nude art revolves around or stems from a sexual orientation or to demoralise women or even men is simply untrue in my opinion. There may be artwork that is created to represent and promote these topics but I feel the organic reason to study the human form is initially to improve and develop ones technique in exploring ways to accurately record the construction of human anatomy. This could then develop into further works of art, or even scientific research drawings by using this knowledge as the foundation for the work succeeding the figure studies.
However, as I have mentioned previously in Part 4 research when using Picasso as an example, some artists use their knowledge and skill to depict subjects which are deliberately distorted or more representational than realistic which may be the counter-argument for the above opinion of mine that life drawing is essential. Although I would argue that without the knowledge and experience of constructing the human form initially, how would the artist know how to manipulate the figure away from the realistic to achieve the desired result for, let’s say, an abstract portrait.
If I were to sit and think about figure drawing, images come to mind of the nude form posed and angled in a variety of ways, artists and practitioners gathered around, ready to challenge themselves to describe the model before them in their own creative way. Before beginning Part 4, I had attended life drawing classes, once a month on average, and although I felt I had learned a considerable amount every time I visited the group, such as estimating how much I could achieve in the time allotted for each pose, class etiquette and environment or a figure’s central line/axis etc. Despite all this, there was something fundamental lacking: a basic understanding of the human form, the structure underneath and how to measure it accurately to describe it convincingly on the paper before me. There is a wealth of historical artwork related to or specifically focused on the human form, I questioned why we as practitioners have so much curiosity about human figures? How did the Old Masters achieve such a high standard of accuracy when describing the human body in their drawings and paintings? Did they attend hundreds of life drawing classes and constantly analyse and scrutinise their technique throughout their lives? Something I noticed when looking at others work during the life drawing classes was how there was only one model but yet it had been described in a variety of different ways, different mark-making, different mediums, different focuses and end-goals. It appeared that some people came to the class to focus on something particular to develop, and this could change every week. This was interesting to me as I had preconceived ideas that life drawing classes were there for one reason: to learn to draw the whole of the human body in one sitting. This was proven wrong quite quickly when I saw one practitioner who maybe focused on the proportions, then others who focused on the energy of the pose and how to represent it with quick and energetic marks rather than concentrating on detail. I understand that I had been using the classes to try to draw the figure and make it look realistic at every change of pose, no matter the duration. Before Part 4, I didn’t really understand what I could get out of the class other than realism; maybe a little naive. Perhaps now I am more open-minded and a little more experienced, when I return to life drawing classes, I will be more aware of what can be achieved at these classes, rather than a fight for realism on shaky structural drawing foundations.
Something in my memory came back to me regarding realistic, impressionistic and abstract figure drawing. When reading Experimental Drawing by Robert Kaupelis previously, I found it really exciting to see so many varied styles of drawings of the human form. Artists and practitioners of all styles used a variety of marks on various supports to represent a figure, others more realistic in style, and some more abstract and/or impressionistic. One exercise Kaupelis used with his students was to show that an entire figure can be represented in one line. How freeing and liberating to draw in this way. I feel this is certainly a way to engage the brain and ask the viewer to read the drawing rather than simply observe it. As previously pondered, I wonder which attributes of the human form are needed for the viewer to acknowledge they are looking at the human figure? Do these recognisable attributes change depending on the shape, weight and style of mark made? This is an experiment that I would like to try in my sketchbook. It certainly is a step in the other direction from the ‘Old Masters’ traditional and classical way of drawing the human form which can feel overwhelming and restrictive if not allowed to wander away from this starting point to investigate a more creative and abstract view point.
Furthermore to this line of investigation, when previously reading The Story of Art, E.H Gombrich, Phaidon Press Ltd, 1984, I remembered I came across an interesting paragraph which discusses Pablo Picasso and his two styles of drawings depicting a chicken with her chicks and a cockerel. Although the birds are similar in classification, the drawing styles are not. When looking at form and realistic construction, I see that the chicken and her chicks are much more realistically described compared to the cockerel which is more of a caricature, bringing out the cheekiness and feisty attitude of the cockerel. Gombrich explores the idea that the opinions of people that view the work of the artists, who produce drawings of forms whether human or animal, can be very prejudice in that they may view a piece and judge it’s success by how accurate the rendering of the subject is in terms of realism. This flagged up a few questions for me: why do some people automatically judge a piece of work to be incorrectly drawn if different to what they envisage the ‘correct’ image to look like? Why do some artists choose or favour drawing in an abstract way, yet can achieve highly detailed, realistic pieces of work? Why and how do some artists/practitioners select elements of the subjects characteristics to portray and how do they successfully convey this through their use of media and mark-making? When looking at historic mark-making, did representational drawing and depictions begin with archaic cave drawings which slowly evolved into more refined marks, then reverted back to more simplistic and abstract shapes with contemporary art? Was it shocking for the society within the era and culture that these abstract and non-realistic drawings where being produced alongside beautifully detailed pieces of work? Did the public deem these abstract risk-takers to be less skilled because of the differences in their work?
I acknowledge that this comparison of Picasso’s chicken and cockerel drawing is transferable to looking at studies of the human form and how artists use different influences and styles to produce their work, whether it be realistic, impressionistic etc. Art history shows that as humans, we have been obsessed with describing the human form as a whole or focusing on individual attributes of the body since we have learnt to make marks with Earth’s materials. This can be seen with sculptures, paintings, drawings and the like, which have been produced for a huge variety of reasons; wealth and power symbols, enjoyment, information/warnings/ religion and culture etc.
I have enjoyed reading about the renaissance period and how artists during this period were united in their aim to study the human form accurately and so, according to royalacademy.org.uk, figure drawing was born as a collective activity. For many years, it was the tradition to study the human figure and ‘correctly’ describe it; I believe this is what is referred to now as classical or atelier drawing? I enjoyed looking at Michelangelo and Da Vinci’s historic drawings of figures; many as preparatory work for their further investigations or masterpieces. I believe that the intense studying and drawing of the human figure, traditionally in the nude, was initially meant as a way to further encourage accurate and detail description of the form rather than elicit shock and offence to the viewers of their studies. The artists would see beyond the nudity for the structure of the figure, the skeleton, then come back out to the shape of the muscles then how the skin was wrapped around those muscles to complete the anatomical figure. A bare or undressed figure, free of restriction and disguise would enable accurate measuring and observing of the figure in its natural form. This sturdy foundation was then built on to drape the figures in textiles if so desired.
A search through google and various social media platforms brings up an array of contemporary figure drawings. It’s not hard to find a wide spectrum of styles and expressions of the human figure. Some of these pieces appeared, to me, to want to draw out unusual feelings and emotions whilst others I found were quite calming and delicate; an appreciation for the human form as if it were. I found highly sexualized nude figure drawings or portraits quite distasteful and I found myself feeling as though it was more pornographic and that it was difficult to concentrate on and understand the techniques used to create the piece and be able enjoy it as a composition. However, this is my mere opinion and there were many contemporary nude figure drawings that I did enjoy studying, more so towards the loose line and figurative drawings which had a suggestion of the human form, rather than a hyper-realistic recordings. I especially liked returning, multiple times, to Kaupelis’ book Experimental Drawing for contemporary figure drawings due to the wealth of examples to select for inspiration in my own experimentation here: the simplicity of a few lines, contour drawing, blind drawing. The list is non-exhaustive, as is the variety of ways to study the human body. I really love looking at all styles of work revolving around the figure as it gives me a small insight into how perception and expression play a huge role in how the figure is described and what the overall outcome and feel of a piece has. Much like Picasso’s chicken and cockerel drawings, some people perceive a ‘right way and a wrong way’ to draw the human body, and others have a more open-mindset and can explore the ‘grey area’ between the black and white with expression, spontaneous experimentation and freedom in their risk-taking to go against tradition.
Investigation
Robert Kaupelis, Experimental Drawing, Watson-Guptill, 1980
This drawing inspired me to ask and investigate what recognisable features or patterns do the human eyes and brain need to see before recognising a human form?
Whilst following some exercise’s in Kaupelis’ Experimental Drawing, I decided to branch off and investigate in my sketchbook some techniques which could be used to describe the figure. I was intrigued about the simplicity of figure drawing in an abstract or figurative style and when we as the viewer recognise it is a figure drawing we are looking at in an unrealistic representation. The following photos document my learning; photo captions explain my thought and physical processes.
For the first of my experiments, I decided to follow some exercises from Kaupelis’ Experimental Drawing. and try contour drawing and blind contour drawing. I also took inspiration from other featured artists work and tried similar techniques with a reference photo from New Masters Academy. I kept using the same image to try different techniques and mediums as I didn’t want to be distracted by the different energies or dynamics of individual poses, rather observe the differences of the medium and technique itself. The top drawing is a pencil structure and dry brushing with leftover earthy tones from my watercolour paint palette. Second drawing bottom left is a ‘partial peek’ contour drawing in ink without a pencil structure so proportions were off due to only taking my eyes off the model to look down occasionally. The third drawing, bottom right, is a blind contour drawing in ink where I didn’t take my eyes off the model and drew on the paper blind. I took inspiration from Luca Cambiaso for this.
4th drawing, top, is a pencil structure with ink laid over in the style of Abrecht Durer in his Portrait of Agnes. According to Kaupelis, he used hatchurling over the body to describe form and tone, apart from on the face. I quite liked the simplicity and semi-looseness of this style of working. 5th drawing is in the style of Egon Schiele who distorted the figure in his Self-Portrait, 1910, and used tone sparingly. I thought about how he would need to observe the accurate structure of the human figure to be able to distort the figure to how he felt it should be distorted. Without the preliminary studies of the figure, how would Schiele have known how to to distort the parts of the body he needed to, to get the desired effect?
6th, 7th and 8th drawings are abstract contour drawings in pencil, ink and finally charcoal. I noticed by the charcoal version, I was loosening up quite a bit and the slow steadiness had become more smooth and quick strokes of charcoal which meant proportion suffered a bit but looseness and expressiveness had grown.
I really enjoyed following an exercise here that involved allowing the heel of the hand to rest on the support and smudge the charcoal as the drawing progressed. Usually, this technique would cause some anxiety and usually I wouldn’t allow my hand to smudge the work I had so precisely placed. However, it was quite liberating to go against the norm for this contour drawing with charcoal. 10th picture, bottom is a blind contour drawing in pencil without taking pencil off of the paper. When comparing this blind contour drawing to drawing number 3, it is easier to see that I was a lot more anchored as the pencil remained on the paper and maintained specific reference points on the figure which helped keep the drawing more ‘together’.
Drawing 13 sees a progressive charcoal drawing where I reduced the number of lines I used to describe the figure which are representational of the contour lines and lines of flow. I enjoyed seeing how different ways of working produced these results, some looking very smooth and slowing, others looking jaunty and less refined.
One of my favourite experiments so far is this Indian ink exercise where I started with 5 lines and gradually reduced until I drew the figure with 1 line. This gave me a great perspective on what the single dominant line of flow was in the figure, the one that represented, to me, what the figure looked like in its most basic form. I also was able to see how varying the weight and shape of the line helped to describe different parts of the figure, whether they be the solid torso or more delicate fingertips.
Drawing 13 is an experiment where I develop a contour drawing and basic lines of flow with trialling wet into wet and wet on dry with Indian ink. I started with a large patch of water on the paper and painted the Indian ink in for the figure. With the other two drawings, I gradually reduced the area of water so there were more sharp edges than ink finding patches of water. I found this quite exciting as I didn’t know where the areas of ink were going to bleed into the water which meant the drawing had unpredictable qualities. Perhaps, If I wanted more control over this, I could lay down specific areas of water, or even a tonal wash to see where they are, to control where I put the figure lines.
Experiment 14 moves towards applying a more controlled wash of tone to my figure. I used undiluted Indian ink to lay down the contour lines and then when dry, applied areas of water where I wanted tone and diluted the ink on the paintbrush progressively, applying the darker and mid tones wet-in-wet to describe form. I feel this is quite an abstract outcome and something quite dynamic and striking because of the sharp contrast of undiluted Indian ink, the white of the support and the tonal washes helping to bring together the concept. I wonder what this would like on a colour or rough support? Or even if I introduced a little colour into the tonal washes or line?
Drawing 15 is a simple and delicate drawing of a figure with a nude colour palette to describe form. I applied a very light contour line and then applied the darker tones wet-in-wet.
I had fun with this drawing in that it started with a cross-contouring drawing in pencil, then I saw a wrapped effect, a bit like drapery over the body from the shape of the lines following the curves of the figure. I also imagined a lined wrap around the limbs and torso.
I decided to spiral my lines around the body parts to give a caged, wire effect. Not quite sure why I went in this direction but I am glad I experimented and took the risk to try something that came to me as an idea. It is a liberating technique in that it asks the viewer to look for patterns and shapes it recognises into understanding the drawing as a figure.
Originally, my idea for drawing 17 was going to be an ink cross-contour drawing but I felt like I had experimented enough with that technique at the moment. This drawing started as a pencil structure and then I felt like changing the medium to fountain pen as I knew the ink was soluble and would therefore bleed if I touched it with a wet medium. I also knew that fountain pen ink has more colour variation to it when bled when comparing it to Indian ink.
Drawing 17 saw me pick up the rigger again and add the same nude colour I used in drawing 15. I gently dragged some of the fountain pen contour line into the areas of tone with the watercolour nude wash I was applying with the rigger. I used the rigger because I knew with certain pressure, I would be able to bend the brush bristles and apply a spontaneous and loose wash so it wouldn’t be so detailed but I could get interesting results with the combination of watercolour and ink. The area of tone could be controlled but the mixture of colours bleeding together was a lot more unpredictable which was satisfying for me to observe. The mixture of soft and hard edges offer some interest to this drawing too and I would like to consider this technique for Assignment 4.
Drawing 17
Here I draw abstract shapes and marks and question my family which body parts they think they are.
A mixture of lines and shapes which describe a figure. This style reminds me of some of Picasso and Modigliani’s work.
The experimentation that I have undertaken here will set me up for the rest of Part Four as I will be able to recall the various techniques and materials that I have experimented with. Also, by looking at the human figure with all of the exercises, the time spent observing and finding the contours and structural bases for the figure drawings has improved my technique and observation to some extent. I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of Part Four brings and how I feel inspired by it.
Recently I have been thinking about adding more expression into my drawings and paintings which is an idea that has come about since the seed was planted in Part One when I was asked to be expressive and take on emotions before I picked up the material that I was going to describe my expressions with.
To get a feel for how others would take to the challenge of being more expressive in their work, I wanted to experiment so I asked my son to complete an expressive task by drawing how he felt when listening to different genres of music. Below are two examples of his sketchbook after he undertook this activity.
This photo demonstrates two examples of expression work that my son produced whilst listening to music. The top page describes a Christmas song where he notes down “Jolly, Christmas, Excited, Happy”. The lines here are mainly heavy, twisting, turning, angular, sharp and flowing and round. The bottom page describes a relaxing lullaby where my son notes “calm, relaxing, gentle”. The words he uses accurately relate to his expressive drawings and I am pleased that I witnessed how easily another human being can take on certain feelings and emotions, especially when specific stimulus are influencing them, and obviously varied the pieces of work can be.
This experiment has excited me as I would like to look into the psychological effects of art and specific pieces on people. If my son has demonstrated that he can easily adopt the same style of art as I can when listening to the same style of music, then I wonder if he would have the same cognitive respsonses when viewing art rather than producing it. Does perception vary from person to person? Would everyone share the same response to a particular piece of art or will it vary based on individual perception, life experiences and maybe, as seen in Part One, current mood and emotions combine with stimulus?
I will try this experiment myself in my sketch book by listening to music when sketching, possibly I could sketch the same picture twice, with different stimulus each time to see the outcomes that they may generate. After researching contemporary still life in Part Two, Project 1, and the theory that some modern still-life artists allow the subject to generate as the painting progresses, I may even have a go at applying some expressive marks to the paper, and seeing how I could develop it into a familiar and recognisable form… possibly I could take this further and remove one or more of my senses (e.g. sight, hearing, touch) to apply the media to the paper to see how this may affect the outcome of the painting/drawing.
Below is a link to a video that demonstrates this method of being more expressive, which an artist wanted to move away from heavily illustrative art work. I found that I felt liberated and inspired after watching the video and would like to experiment using different body parts (feet, toes, elbows, fingers, arms etc.) or attach different tools to myself to apply the media to the paper/plane to make the marks.
Here are my sources of inspiration and research that are available online. I share these to demonstrate how I have found pieces of information through the web that have helped develop me as an artist but also to show my reflection and perception of other practitioners work.
Here, I demonstrate how I effectively immerse myself into my studies and its wider context by engaging in conversations and topic-related activities with other students through the OCA online discussions or their blogs. I also provide my sources of inspiration and research into how other students perceive the course projects and interpret them. I understand that these are really beneficial ways to encourage me to gain a wider knowledge and experience of drawing and mark-making in it’s wider context and how varied the outcomes can be from other students and practitioners.
WordPress Blogs – OCA Students on Drawing 1
My initial comment to Steve. I loved his journey so far on the Drawing 1 course, his humour was really relatable and refreshing and I understood his summary that this exercise was to discover other ways of drawing than a realistic approach.
My reply to SteveAtOCA
Reaching out to other students about my studies with experimenting with different media on the OCA coffee blog
Following on from a previous blogposts about learning to play/experiment with ideas and thought processes, this post is my response to exploring the possible outcomes and properties media and materials carry when used in different ways. I will be regularly updating with my findings and my thoughts on how the experiment went and what I will do with my findings, following my basic principle of: ‘plan, execute, review’. I have aimed to be quite free in my thinking and experimenting and not allowing myself to set restrictions (unless dangerous or offensive!) on what I use, how I use it and in what combination with other materials. I understand that this may mean some things I try may not be successful or work how I expect them to; I will try to remain open-minded about this and understand why/how the experiment didn’t work and take the findings forward to develop myself further.
Charcoal and/or pastel
Playing with thick and think willow charcoal, lying the sticks on their sides, using the points, rubbing, smearing, lifting with putty rubbers and an HB pencil eraser, discovering varied tonal shades, dragging the stick, varying pressure of stick.
Experimenting with mixing different media with charcoal. Layering, wiping, smudging, lifting. I especially like placing the masking tape over the charcoal and applying another layer on top and then when the tape was removed it left a sharp crisp line.
Accidental find – charcoal dust – In the previous image I blew away some charcoal dust from the paper and it left lovely marks that suggest movement and possibly energy for waves, fireworks, fire, wind etc. I explored this technique here with a simple explosion drawing with other coloured pastels. A good find!
A really exciting technique of depicting sharp, defined shapes with a charcoal stick. The punched holes enabled me to create circles where I can then leave them sharp or smudge them. The paper with the punched holes also gives an unusual visual effect which also feels unusual to the fingertips, reminds me of an industrial feel.
Whilst researching ‘charcoal’ I found a lovely piece by an artist named Dennis Creffield. A charcoal drawing of his ‘Durham: The Central Tower’, 1987, caught my eye as I browsing his work at Tate.org.uk, originally I thought that there was a blurred black and white photo behind the charcoal lines (perhaps this a technique that I can visit at some point: overlaying media on top of photographs/images). Looking closer I can see I quickly made this decision based on the tonal gradation in conjunction with the angular charcoal lines in thick, thin, light and dark markings. Amongst these strong lines are also smudged varying tones of charcoal, possibly white chalk and/or putty rubber to lift off and create highlights and interest, which help to define light and dark areas of the tower. The strong angular lines make a statement and this is what is obvious at first, almost like the skeleton of the building is on the outside, reminds me of scaffolding. The word support comes to mind here. I really like that you can clearly see short, sharp and systematic lines, worked in alongside soft, sweeping smudges. I feel like there is an atmosphere of gloom and mourning in this photo, I don’t really know why, maybe it’s the colour and tones of the piece, maybe (relating back to the first exercise in project 1) the emotions Creffield had inhabited set the atmosphere/feeling of the piece. Could he have been angry, frustrated or sad when he depicted the tower? https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/creffield-durham-the-central-tower-t05753
In this section I explore various techniques for creating marks with ink. During the first few exercises in Part One, I am really starting to enjoy the versatility of ink and how it can create a variety of marks when used by itself or in combination with other materials.
Sketchbook investigating into my daughters experiments and also ink runs, inspiration by Lucy Dean, OCA Student.
Further experiment with ink, starting to create work with putting into practise the ink run and bleed technique. I lifted out excess water with a dry brush and dropped drips of water into dark areas to add interest. The dark edge appears when these puddles dry to form a back run effect. I also found dropping ink into a wet line, the ink ran up and down the water line rather than just straight down.; this surprised me as I though gravity would pull the ink down. I also like the layering technique of applying wet ink over dry to create a definitive line and dark, strong area. I could possibly progress this idea and put this type of design over music sheets, either printed or blank, or even I could create the notes on the blank music sheet with ink, possibly creating the run effect there too!
Lucy Dean, student at OCA, gave me inspiration to experiment with ink runs and bleeding when I saw her piece at https://www.oca-student.com/resource-type/student-work-uncovered-lucy-dean. I was intrigued as to how she depicted the human form leaning against an item, with what looks like charcoal and ink. The charcoal provides the tonal variation for the large areas of the body and face and the ink looks to provide structure and dark shadows to distinguish between the creases and light and dark areas of the figure. I feel excited by her use of ink runs, I feel it adds dynamism to the piece, almost creating a 3D impression with interest.
Watercolour
Blowing bubbles and letting them fall and burst onto a watercolour wash background. Some bubbles landed and then burst on the paper (the right hand photo) and some burst above the paper and almost rained down onto the painted background (left hand photo).
Free play with various materials, focusing on creating texture on top of the paper with various materials.
PLAY TIME: garden twine, ink, watercolour paints, newspaper, printer paper, paintbrushes, drawing pens in 0.3 and 0.8 widths, bamboo skewers, aluminium foil, baking parchment, charcoal and masking tape.
The mindset of sitting down to play with the above project quite excited me. I had a simple set of aims:
Use materials that I haven’t considered as utilising in art pieces before, such as: baking parchment, foil, plain printer paper, newspaper, wooden sticks/skewers, string etc.
Experiment with the materials underneath and other the top of one another – how do they react? does one way work better than the other?
See which materials would be suitable for adhering to the foundation to work on top of, or which can be utilised as a vehicle for transferring the medium to the foundation.
See which effects I like and understand how these can be used in further projects (the butterfly)
Have fun with the materials and see if a natural flow of ideas stems from one particular experiment (see how the screwed up foil dipped in the ink near the middle-bottom of the page, I saw this as maybe leaves on the tree to the right)
Can I make mini drawings from my experiments? Do these pictured recall any memories or emotions that I can inspire to make a mini drawing? (see dog walking, butterfly, surfer, telephone ringing, yacht)
The above photo shows in a larger view of the area where I worked with Indian ink on baking parchment paper. I really enjoyed this technique, the resistance of the parchment meant that the ink stayed on top and was not absorbed. This ensured that when I laid it facing down onto the cartridge paper, the ink was able to be transferred in with a ‘bleeding’ as the paper slowly absorbed the ink pressed onto it. I found that the edges of this mark were soft and variable due to the pressure applied to the parchment; I thought that this would be ideal for other projects and ideas, as written on the bottom right of the photo, which then my idea progressed to quickly drawing a butterfly in pen ink and reproducing the parchment/ink technique again to lay over the butterfly wings. A really unusual effect and something that I would like to use again, possibly with different coloured inks and other media such as drawing pens/dip pen and ink, and maybe trying the technique on rougher paper to see if I can get the bleed to be rougher/more tonal gradation.
Laura Baker 522918 Learning Log - Drawing 1 