Drawings: OCA Part 4: Proportions II - The Longer Pose

 The Longer Pose

Oil Pastel on Green Paper

 

Thank you to my mother for once again offering (involuntarily) to be my model for this exercise. I ended up doing two drawings instead of the intended one as I wanted to experiment further with a different medium after finishing the pencil and wash piece and produced the oil pastel piece above as well. I employed the time tested artists method of holding a pencil at arm’s length to judge the right measurements and learned a valuable lesson – always ensure you’re using the same pencil for this.

The Longer Pose

Pencil and Wash

 

Learning Log

 

Have you managed to make a complete statement in this time? What were your main problems?

In the majority of my drawings there is a compete statement but I have to admit not necessarily a totally accurate one.

I find that the main problem that I am encountering is with the details of the face and hands. Working with larger mediums like pastels of thick charcoal this is not so noticeable; there is less room for details so fewer marks. However I really struggle when using finer utensils such as pencil or ink pen to record the details of faces and hands smoothly and succinctly. I know his is all down to a matter of practicing it so practice it I shall do.

How well have you captured the characteristics of the pose?

When I stayed focused and concentrated on each mark that I made the character of the pose definitely came through much stronger and produced a more satisfying drawing. However sometimes I would get bogged down in certain areas and loose some of that individual personality.

Do the proportions look right? If not, how will you try to improve this?

Surprisingly I think the proportions of my figures are generally quite good, at times the faces and hands are a bit off as mentioned before, so I shall practice to hopefully improve in the future. Otherwise I don’t think they are at all that bad I found that using objects in the background to relate to really helped to get the scale right.

Preparatory Sketch

Biro and Marker Pen

Drawings: OCA Part 3: Drawing Trees I - Sketching an Individual Tree

Sketching an Individual Tree - Small Sketches

'Like people, trees are all individuals.'

- David Hockney

 

Sketching an Individual Tree - St James Park

Pencil on Paper

 

Trees are a subject that I always love to draw, no two trees will ever be the same, and they are an infinite supply of inspiration. Indeed, no two drawings of the same tree will be the same either as they are always continuously changing colour and shape, through the seasons etc.

It is also the process of drawing trees that I find enjoyable, starting with the basic shape and building up the mass of the drawing, adding in details such as twigs and leaves that might catch my eye and lend a distinct character to the drawing and individual tree.

Quick Sketches of Trees

Ink and Biro (Left) . Charcoal (Right)

 

Tree in  Local Park

Pastel on Coloured Paper

 

Drawings: OCA Part 3: Landscape Drawing III - Drawing Cloud Formations

  Drawing Cloud Formations - Calm day

Blue Ink and Wash - A4

 

I produced a number of these sketches in between other drawings over several days to capture the clouds in several different formations. It was definitely most interesting when it was stormy; the clouds seemed to roll on and on dramatically covering the landscape. Representing this on paper was no easy task but I made a few attempts with a couple of fiascos but also some that managed to show some of that drama.

 Drawing Cloud Formations - Cirrus Clouds

Charcoal and Chalk - A4

 

Drawing Cloud Formations - Low Storm Clouds

Charcoal and Chalk - A4

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 II: Project - Still Life Revisited

Still Life Group in Tone

Oil Pastel A4

 

Because I wasn't entirely happy with my original attempt at this exercise as seen in my last post i decided to revisit it and have another go.

This time I stuck to cooler colours at the bluer end of the spectrum but used the same compositon so that i could compare the two results once finished. I definitely prefer this one, i find it a lot fresher and it feels much more harmonious.

Drawings: OCA Part 2 II: Project - Still Life

 Still Life Group using Line

Fine Liner and wash A3

 

Still Life Group in Tone

Oil Pastel A4

 

What aspects of each drawing have been successful, and what did you have problems with?

I really like the still life group using line, especially the mushroom and onion, these definitely worked well because of their shapes and textures. Unfortunately I feel the melon in the background was less successful, I found the texture was hard to capture correctly.

I can’t say the drawing of the still life group in tone is one that I particularly like but it did at least make me think about the tones more, as a positive I do like the colours I chose.

Did you manage to get a sense of depth in your drawings? What elements of the drawings and still life groups helped to create that sense?

The first drawing has a bit of depth to it and I think this was helped by the composition and the way that the objects build up as they go further into the drawing. If I’m honest I think the second piece is definitely lacking this.

What difficulties were created by being restricted to line or tone?

I found the main difficulty was that I wanted to be creative but the rules were quite prohibitive; I had to learn not to indulge the urge to be spontaneous. I also think that it is quite hard to accurately describe the objects without a combination of the two elements of line and tone.