Drawings: OCA Part 2: Assignment 2

Final Piece

Watercolour and Pencil - A3 

For this assignment I knew I wanted to produce something full of colour, so I started playing around with drawing and sketching different pieces of fruit like onions and chillies, trying out different media as I went.

I initially really liked the idea of the chillies and went ahead with the idea, adding in some green herbs to enhance the colour and using the same view point (from above) that I thought worked well in the fish on plate piece from earlier in the project. I like these pieces but having reviewed the criteria for this assignment again, I was not confident that I had really completed it as well as I could with the composition or colour, probably because I rushed into doing it.

I was not particularly enthusiastic about doing another ink piece at this point so I went back and tried using a combination of pencil and watercolour on some small drawings of fruit. I really liked the way these turned out so I continued with this idea. I also thought a lot longer about the composition I would use, sketching out different ideas first. I added a simple jug that had quite a natural curve like the fruit and eventually a pot plant at the back that gave the arrangement some height and presence. Once I had finalised the composition I produced a couple of studies to make sure I was happy with the lighting and positioning of the all the items and then started on the final piece.

I first sketched the whole thing out in pencil, ensuring that the scale and shading was right. I used the cross-hatching method because I knew it would help to define the shapes well. With the watercolour, I built up layers of separate tones, building it up most where the darker tones were present and leaving the highlighted parts almost bare. It took quite a while to do it this way but I am fairly pleased with the result.

 Study of Red Onions

Watercolour and Biro - A4

 

Initial Studies and Sketches

 

 

First result that I was not happy with

 

 

Starting Over with some Watercolour Studies

 

Playing around with Composition

 

Practice before Final Piece

Watercolour and Pencil

 Pros:

-          My favourite thing about this piece is definitely the colours; I specifically choose the lemons, limes and satsumas because I thought the colours contrasted well, giving each piece of fruit its own separate form.

-          The cross-hatching works well to define the shapes.

Cons:

-          Despite all the planning for it, I’m still not entirely happy with the composition; I think I preferred it in some of the study pieces as opposed to the final drawing.

-          Looking at it now I think I should have thought more about filling in the background to give the piece a better setting.

Drawings: OCA Part 2 III: Project - Drawing Fruit and Vegetables in Colour - Part III

Exercise: Drawing Using Oil Pastel

& Learning Log

 

 Final Drawing: Apples, Lemons and Baby Tomatoes

Oil Pastel - A3 Yellow Textured Paper

 

For this exercise I first started to play around with the composition, I was using a couple of tangerines and apples to try and get some strong contrast between the greens and oranges. I found a composition that I was happy with and attempted a quick drawing of this with oil pastels on a piece of A4 paper. I like the result and I think the contrast works really well, however there isn’t much range in shape or size so I added some lemons into the arrangement.

I decided to try and use a textured green coloured paper but it soon became apparent after I had started filling in some of the colour that I had made the wrong choice. I did a quick experiment on some textured yellow coloured paper and found this worked much better. I also made a last minute decision to swap the tangerines for some baby tomatoes to vary the range of shapes and sizes a bit more.

I used a chrome yellow to sketch in the main shapes as it was neutral colour that was not too heavy and was apparent in all the pieces of fruit. I then used a Van Dyke Brown to pick out the darkest areas before getting started on the rest. I used a bit of vermillion in the baby tomatoes, yellow ochre in these and the lemons. I found that a yellow grey pastel I had was the perfect tone for the apples as well as the shadow cast by everything. I was aware of how colours from some pieces of fruit were reflected in other, such as the green from the apples being seen in the lemons too, this helped to intensify the colours a bit more, giving a much stronger visual impact. I found that the colours worked really well together and against the yellow paper, it did take quite a while to build up the layers on it but I am very pleased with the final result.

 

Composition studies

Charcoal - A4

Study of apples and Tangerines

Oil Pastel - A4

Learning Log

Your composition should occupy most of the paper’s surface. How much negative space do you have left?

In terms of the way the composition fits onto the page, I would say I have done quite well. The subjects in my pieces sit quite comfortably without feeling like they are crammed onto the paper but also not getting swamped by extra space.

The piece I did of the apple with two lemons using the dip pens is a bit tight as the shadow is quite near the left edge, this is because I didn’t plot out the shadow before I went ahead with it so it could do with shifting to the right a bit.

I purposely left some negative space between the fruit in the final pastel drawing. I did this so that I could get a balance between drawing the pieces of fruit individually as well as allowing them to intersect each other in places.

What have you learned from drawing the details of fruit and vegetables?

I have learnt to try and think about the objects a lot more before I begin to draw them, and to work out how some will work well together and others maybe not so much. It was also interesting to try and capture the different textures of each individual piece of fruit whilst trying to maintain the relationship between them and keep the feeling that they are all part of the same drawing.

What did you find the most challenging about this part of the course?

It was difficult to know whether a composition would really work until I started to actually draw it, this is where doing the sketches for the last piece first really helped.

 

Experiments on Coloured Paper

Oil Pastel - A4

 

 

 

Drawings: OCA Part 2 III: Project - Drawing Fruit and Vegetables in Colour - Part II

Exercise: Using Markers or Dip Pens

 

 Orange, Pear and Lemons

Marker Pens - A4

Apple, Pear, Orange and Lemon

Marker Pens - A4

 

 Apple, Oranges and Lemons

Marker Pens - A4

 

I really enjoyed this exercise, both the process and the results captured my interest. Using coloured marker pens to draw with was a fairly new thing for me, I have never tried sketching anything out with them properly, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I began this exercise. It all turned out fine though and I became engrossed in building up the hatching, using the bold lines that are inevitable with marker pens. I had quite a good range of markers to utilise in these drawings and after some experimentation i dicovered that layering the dark blue and red close to each other formed a great dark tone for the shadowy parts.

 

I also produced a couple of drawings with the use of ink and dip pens. I have used dip pens before in my first assignment, but I stuck to black and sepia then, unlike in this exercise. I approached each drawing differently intentionally. With the first one I washed some rather bold strokes onto the paper with a brush, layering the red over the green where it was darkest and sketching the details in afterwards with a dip pen and black ink. The second drawing I did completely with a dip pen similar to my marker pen pieces, building up the hatching on different planes.

 

 

 Two Apples

Washed Ink and Dip Pens - A4

 

Apple and Lemons

Pen and Ink - A4

 

 

Drawings: OCA Part 2 III: Project - Drawing Fruit and Vegetables in Colour

Exercise: Using Hatching to Create Tone

 

 Studies of an Apple and Oranges

Watercolour Pencil - A4

 

 Studies of a Banana and an Apple

Highlighter - A4

Two Oranges and Lime in Wooden Bowl

Colour Pencil - A4

 

Redrawn Close-up of Previous Drawing 

I started this exercise using watercolour pencils in the first piece, beginning with the lighter ones and building the lines with darker ones like the purple and royal blues. I also experimented with highlighters though I can’t say I’m particularly pleased with the result but it was interesting to do.

 

I then positioned two oranges and a lime in a bowl and used colour pencil to draw this arrangement. I placed the bowl near a lamp to cause some strong tonal contrast and I think the highlight with the white pencil show this particularly well.

 

Just for curiosity as to whether this technique would also work well on a larger scale I used a viewfinder on the drawing and produced another one that increases the size of part of the original.

Drawings: OCA Project - Still Life

Composition of Natural Objects.

Indian Ink on A4 Paper

Do you think it is easier to suggest three dimensions on man-made or natural objects?

It is definitely easier to define the shapes of man-made objects in three-dimensions because they are made up of regular geometric shapes with corners and faces. Natural objects such as fruit and plants do not conform to these regularities and tend to have lumps and bumps that make a subject harder to define.

How did you create a sense of solidity in your composition?

I used black Indian ink applied with a brush to lay down some bold defining lines. These lines helped to give the drawing a sense of depth as the black seemed dense and heavy against the white of the paper. Then I added water to some of the black ink to dilute it for the mid-tone wash; helping to bind the dark and light tones of the drawing together.

Do you think changing the arrangement of your composition makes a difference to your approach and the way you create a sense of form?

I think it was good to experiment with different compositions before starting on the final drawing as it helped me to find an interesting layout for my objects that was still comfortable to draw. It also helped me to see how different objects could interact and play off each other to convey the sense of form.

How did you decide to position yourself in relation to the objects?

I decided I wanted to view the objects from a slightly elevated position this gave me a good view of all the objects together and of the shadows cast by the light coming in from the right hand side. I also liked this position because the fruit formed a sort of triangular arrangement and the flower stems seemed intertwine around all the gaps.

Photos of sketchbook pages

Still life sketches of made objects & Natural object composition arrangements.

Both in Black Ballpoint Pen

Still Life: Fruit in Ink

Indian Ink in Sketchbook

This is a piece I created quite a while ago of some fruit I arranged on a chopping board, I was reminded of it because of the artwork I put up a few days ago where I was looking at the artist Paul Cézanne. I actually did this piece in a sketchbook, quite evident from the page fold in the middle, but I wanted to put it up as a still life piece.

I did this piece of work using Indian ink where I started by adding some of the details using a fine nib, concentrating solely on the shapes, following the body of the fruit almost like creating contours. I then mixed some water with a couple of drops of ink that I put on as a wash to try and create a mid tone. It is a very simple piece but I think it makes quite a nice piece of art.