jade-cole

[jade-cole]

life drawing

Throughout this module, we have also been life drawing once a week for six weeks. Through the first couple of weeks, I didn’t notice much of a change in my drawings and my technique was quite sketchy rather than contour. However, towards the end of the six weeks, I have noticed that I have definitely improved as my lines are stronger and my drawings are more accurate with better body proportions. I have really enjoyed life drawing as it is challenging but very rewarding to see the finished drawing and I really hope we do this again. 

This drawing is from our first week of life drawing and I think it is clear and the proportions are ok, but it lacks depth as a contour drawing and a shaded piece.

This drawing is from the fifth week of life drawing and, despite it still looking a bit sketchy, I can tell that there is improvement, especially in the line technique of the shading which I really like. I am aiming more now on improving hands and feet as I feel this will help to add detail to a drawing and finish it off better.

[jade-cole]

week ten - 30/11/2020

This week was an introduction into lino cutting. I did this week from home and started with the lino block which was a bit difficult because it was hard to cut into. I also found that when printing, the ink would pick up on all the stray pieces of the background, so next time I would either cut out the main shape or really remove the background pieces. The finished linocut was actually quite rewarding though and I really liked how it looked when printed because the lines were thick and clear. I would definitely do this again and I really like that you can print as many pieces using the finished stencil as you want to and that you can mix colours. Unfortunately, I did not have any other colours, but this is definitely something I would do in the future. 

[jade-cole]

week nine - 23/11/2020

This week we looked at portraiture and reportage. For the portrait, I sketched someone face to face, using the facial proportions guides. I have been using these facial guides for a while and I really like how they help to proportion the face correctly. I am not 100% happy with this portrait because I think it is quite basic and lacks depth, so I would keep this in mind when doing another portrait. 

With reportage, we looked at how it is used in places such as courtrooms and war zones to take an eyewitness account of what is happening. On our Tuesday session, we used this way of recording in Cardiff Bay. I really liked how this turned out because I felt there was a freedom to it that it didn’t have to look clean and you could overlap drawings. My favourite thing I recorded was people skating in a skate park because I had to work quickly to document them as they moved.

[jade-cole]

week eight - 16/11/2020

This week we looked at 1,2 and 3 point perspectives. I found that 1 and 2 were quite simple to understand and use, but 3 was quite tricky because it is almost from an underneath perspective.

On Tuesday, we walked around Cardiff and found examples in real life of the three different types of perspective. The one and two point were easy to find because they were on eye level, whereas to find three point perspective, you had to look up.

I found this week very useful because sometimes it’s difficult to know where to put objects inside of a drawing and I found drawing out the perspectives on grid paper really helped to visualise what I was doing and I would definitely use grid paper again.

[jade-cole]

week seven 9/11/2020

This week we looked at composition and how it can change how an illustration looks. The images below are illustrations I found online with what composition rule applies to them and how. 

Using a photo from our camera roll, we sketched up a quick thumbnail of it and then re-sketched it using one of the composition rules. I used the rule of thirds on a photo of my dog because the lines crossed at the main points of the where his body was, so it worked well. 

Using an old illustration I have done, I applied the rule of thirds to improve upon its composition. I think it does work and the focal point is on the character now, rather than her blending in, but there is a loss of the background. This could be better if the character was drawn larger, so she was still in the foreground. 

On Tuesday, we went to Cardiff museum. We had to find three paintings that each followed a rule of composition and sketch them up. This was quite simple because most artwork fits into a composition, and I only realised this when looking for it. 

We then sketched three exhibits using the composition rules. 

I like the rules of composition as they make sense and they definitely make an illustration look better, however it was a little difficult at times to work some of them out, but I’m hoping this will become easier with time. 

[jade-cole]

week six 2/11/2020

This week we were drawing from still life. We had to create a contour line drawing of a set up of objects ranging from a skeleton to toy characters. I liked this task a lot because I enjoy still life and it was easier to use the contour technique than it was at the beginning of the year, so it was nice to see an improvement.

The only thing I am not one hundred percent happy with in this drawing is that I didn’t manage to include a wider range of the objects that were on display. I started with the skeleton, and only realised after that I would only be able to fit it’s head and start of the ribcage on the page with a small pumpkin toy. Besides this, I am happy with my contour drawing and I feel it accurately fits the scale of the skeleton. 

We then used tracing paper to create a shaded only version of the drawing, which wasn’t as challenging as I first thought, because I just had to draw what shadows I could see. I am actually really pleased with this drawing because I think it shows an aspect of dimension due to the shading and looks more realistic than I thought it would. 

[jade-cole]

week five - 26/10/2020

This week’s task was to draw into reality. Our brief was to create a drawing and put it into a real life area and photograph it. I chose to create a mushroom house on paper and used paint markers and watercolours to colour it, as these work well together and I use them regularly. To make it more realistic, I cut the house out so it would slot into the plant. I really like the way this turned out because it looks quite cute and almost like it belongs in a children’s programme. I think the colours work well together as they are basic reds and yellows, but establish the idea of the mushroom and stand out against the leaves. I learnt that it was a lot easier to think creatively than I realised, as I initially wasn’t sure what to make, but I am happy with my outcome. The only thing I would change would be to possibly add more details into the mushroom.

[jade-cole]

week four - 19/10/2020

This week we worked on observational drawing from life and mark making techniques. We began by using a range of tools such as combs, cotton buds and sticks to make different textures. I really liked doing this because there was no set way for it and it was very freeing. It also made me think a bit more about how a texture looks.

We then moved onto drawing dead fish. These were quite interesting to draw, despite their smell, because they had a lot of different skin textures due to their scales. I used the contour drawing technique for most of these drawings, which I really like because it gives the fish a sense of dullness as they are very flat and look glum, which I think shows their dead state quite well. I also used ink for one of these drawings, which I don’t like as much because I think it lacks the detail and personality that the contour technique brought. 

To draw a larger image of the fish, I used paint brushes, ink and water to try and accurately portray the fish and its shadows. This was fun because there was no set way to draw the fish, like the mark making, so I used ink for the darker areas, and washed it down with water for the lighter patches. This was fun, but I do prefer the previous drawings of the contour fish more, because of the personality they seem to have. I really enjoyed this lesson though, because I haven’t used ink in this way before, and don’t often mark make, so it helped me to be a bit more relaxed with my artwork.

[jade-cole]

week three - 12/10/2020

This week, we were drawing with different size scales. We began drawing on A7, and worked up to as large as four A2 sheets put together. We used objects as our focus and mine was a multi-coloured dragon. I found that the smaller drawings such as A7 and A5 were quite difficult as I had to draw the object smaller than it actually was. Drawing on the large scale was also challenging, however I found this really enjoyable as I liked to think about how much bigger each part of the object would need to be. I am happy with how my largest piece turned out as the scale was accurate, however I would improve in the future by making it more detailed. I learnt that using a grid to help with scale is very effective, as I haven’t used this method before, but would definitely do it again. 

Tuesday’s session was in Cardiff Bay, and our task was to draw a panoramic sketch of an area in groups, using charcoal. We took it in turns as smaller groups of three to add to the drawing before the other half of the group took over. This was a good task to improve on collaborating with other artists, however I did struggle with it as it was difficult to draw alongside other people’s work. It was also quite interesting to work out the drawing as a group, but overall I probably wouldn’t try this again, but I am glad I experienced it because it taught me how to draw in with other people’s work. 

[jade-cole]

week two - 5/10/2020

This week we worked with negative space, where a drawing is the space around the object and not the object itself. For our reference, we had a bicycle and we also used a paper viewfinder. I found this challenging to begin with, because I instinctively wanted to draw the details in the bike, but it was relatively easy to get the hang of after some practise. I actually really like the way this work turned out because I think you can still work out what the drawing is of, without having to see all the details. I could definitely improve on this method of drawing because I did find myself rubbing out lines quite often, but the outcome is ok.

On Tuesday, we went to the Cardiff indoor market to do some perspective drawing. We began with four sections of small contour drawings of the market, then we spent longer on an A4 contour drawing of a larger section of the market. I think this task really helped me to get an understanding of how close and how far away things appear in perspective drawing, as in my first four drawings, I didn’t get the proportions correct on the ceiling.  For the A4 drawing, I think I did a better job at managing proportion and scale, as well as contour drawing. However, I do think that this drawing could be better if it looked more three dimensional instead of flat, but this was hard to achieve due to being face on with the area I was recalling, and I would next time try drawing from a different angle. 

[jade-cole]

week one - 28/09/2020

We started the course by quickly drawing all our other classmates and an introduction to contour drawing, which is an outline drawing with no shading involved. We used this method to draw several sketches of our hands and a section of the room. I have never used this technique before, and it was challenging because I am so used to sketching, however I think it will become easier over time with more practise.

On Tuesday, we continued the use of the contour technique whilst drawing around Cardiff. In groups of three, we used a dice app to determine which direction of Cardiff we headed to, and how long we walked for. When we arrived at each place, we would draw something in the surrounding area for 5 minutes, using the contour line method. I used both pen and pencil in this task, and found it easier to stick to the contour technique when drawing buildings, as they are mainly straight lines. When drawing a person however, I did stray back to the sketching technique, but when drawing my self portrait at home, I think I used the contour method quite well.