Similarities and Differences: Introduction

My Second Coursework Project revolved around the theme of Similarities and Differences. It sounds confusing, but it's very open. You could compare mediums, textures, styles, designs, subjects, anything really! We had a very broad spectrum of work across our class.

But, we all started with the same still life.

 

 

A Sustained Drawing can make or break an entire grade sometimes. The more, and better quality drawings you have, the more marks you get. Hence why at the beginning of every project, our teacher set up a still life, and we had to draw it (apologies for bad photography).

This one she set up involved lots of contrasting textures, heights, metallic and varying states of organic and synthetic; a collection of weird, wacky and wonderful items to which nearly none of them match. Differences.

 

My favourite part was the bowl of wool (three guesses why...) but mainly because of the challenge it posed. This was solved by drawing in the strands themselves with long, sweeping pencil marks.

 

This drawing I did in half coloured pencils, and half tonal, so that in my annotation, I could compare them. Throughout the entire project, I tried to make everything as blatantly clear as possible. Which, I'm told, is a very good thing.

 

This project is shorter than the other one, as we had less time, and I myself went through a very bad patch, so was unable to work to my fullest potential. However, everything you do contributes to the final mark, so never give up.



Bark Studies

One of the exercises my teacher made us do was to collect a natural object, then experiment in techniques and media that we wouldn't usually have used.

I picked up a piece of bark from our field.

First, I drew it, but not in my usual, photo-realistic style. I used cross hatching to create detail and texture. Personally, I think it strikes a particular resemblance to a whale, but others said it looked ok.

Then, after tracing the image onto a second piece of paper, I used torn bits of sugar paper to collage the image. I hated it. The colours were too bright, it looked too abstract... Then I slid the tracing paper across it accidentally, and realised it actually made it better. It's translucent nature dimmed the colours,and the lines I had used for tracing gave it definition. I offset it, so the sugar paper is still visible, but it gives it more character.

This is a particularly bad photo of the final technique I used. I applied layers and layers of different shades of brown paint to the paper, before using the tip of a blunt pencil to scratch in the details of the bark pattern. This is called sgraffito, and it worked rather well.

Clustered together, I use these three experiments as a reminder to step out of my comfort zone every once in a while, and try something new.

Corporal Radar O'Reilly

.....Of the 4077th M*A*S*H.

Drawn with B, 3B and 7B pencils.

I got bored yesterday, so I decided to do a pencil drawing. Tonal pencils have an amazing ability to be incredibly versatile. For this they are my favourite media.

This is Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly, Company clerk in the TV Series M*A*S*H. It's an old show, dating from the 70s, but set in the Korean war. Howeever, it relates to society today, still, with the ongoing conflict in the East, showing how hard it is in those situations. My mum introduced it to me in about January, and I have become hooked. Every night between 7 and 8, I watch the next two episodes.

I choose Radar, a) because he's one of the funniest characters there, but also b) because it shows the brutality that the draft took them to. Radar was drafted when he was 19, and is much younger at heart than everyone else in the show. He still sleeps with his teddy bear.

Also, it was an interesting picture.

I love drawing creases in clothes, as I find them very characterful. For example, here, Radar is smaller than everybody else, so his clothes (standard army issue) are too large for him.

Would it surprise you if I said that his corporal stripes were one of the hardest things to draw? That and his smile, the latter of which still hasn't worked.... If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

This was also my first encounter with a scanner... I think it turned out ok...

Now, I will leave you with a very short clip from the TV series. Enjoy!



Slate

Finally! Another Art Coursework post! This one refers to the section I spent studying a selection of slate rocks from by garden path...

Tonal Pencils

Slate

Clay

Above are the collections that I created from the slate: A Tonal pencil drawing, then the slate itself, and finally a collection of clay pieces that I shaped into the rocks.

Slate is interesting and difficult to draw because it is a layered rock. The splitting of these layers is easier than trying to break it up perpendicular to the layers because the molecular forces between the layers is weaker. Random Physics thrown in there.... either way, the effect was hard to replicate, as was the texture, in both the clay and the pencil drawing.

I like the pencil drawing. It was the most detailed one that I'd done up until that point, and it took me several hours. The shapes of the pieces themselves were intriguing, and rather complex, something I hadn't really planned for when choosing to study them.

The clay was more tolerable than usual. I detest clay, as it never does what I ask it to, usually. But, as These were smaller objects that I was trying to work with, I think it was easier - which is probably a fluke.

Painting them was fun as well... Instead of using glazes as we usually do in school, I used acrylics to create the dappled grey effect. This was more realistic, I found.

Overall, I'm very pleased with them. They could have been better, ut isn't that always the case?

What I learnt from this was to be realistic when choosing a subject to draw - the slate was difficult. It also depends on what  drawing style you want to use - photorealistic is harder to create than line or crosshatching. I also learnt to tolerate clay. For now.