Observational Drawing Practice

Today we went out into Leeds with our sketchbooks with the intention of building our skills in observational drawing. Our task was to capture what we saw and translate this into a visual image.

We were given a list of things to draw:

Something from above

Something unnecessary

Something walking

Something architectural

Something old

Something organic

Something unnoticed

Something held in your hand

Something that made you smile

Something you smelt

Something you heard

I often use references, real life objects to inform my drawings, but I often change what I see in order to create an interesting and appropriate illustration depending on the purpose and audience that I am producing it for. I might change the colours, change the patterns or the shape so that it works with the words or style that I want.

I also spend as much time as I need to capture this image. I may take a photo of it or revisit it.

I'd not really spent much time trying to draw from real life before because the process makes me feel nervous. 

To stand in the middle of a group of people and draw them worries me because I know that other people would be able to see what I am doing. I like to draw in private and only show my work when it is complete or when it is at a stage that I am happy with it.

I know that this is not a productive way of working and that getting into the habit of this activity would make it less daunting. I hope that it will also improve my drawing abilities if I continue to 'work out' and build my drawing muscles!

These drawings are awful. They're wonky and disproportional and ugly. 

They make me want to learn how to draw properly.

At the beginning of today's task, my drawings were still very illustrative and a lot of the details were fabricated from my own mind and imagination. I relied on memory rather than vision to help me to keep up with the fast-paced buzz of the city life.

I need to learn to keep my eye on the game and speed up my drawing! I think that the best way to do this will just be to train myself, pushing every day to do at least one observational drawing from life.

I wasn't considering the space of the page at all.

The composition of the page was chaotic; all of my little drawings were crumpled together on one page. I need to be selective.

(Above is a silly drawing of an old man and his stumped, almost squatting posture. This is a really simple line drawing focusing on the shape of his body as well as the negative space around him, but it really did made me chuckle. This song sums up my feelings towards this illustration: Roobarb and Custard Theme Tune)

I liked the quick rush of capturing elements from one face and moving on to another individual's body or torso to build an amalgamation of the two.

I noticed that my mood affected my drawing style.

Being silly, joking and staying with my friends led to really quite odd and playful images. I'm not sure that this is effective in producing an accurate image, but I think that this might be useful to know when trying to make humorous illustrations in the future.

I did most of my drawing today with quite a thick brush pen. The Berol Broad helped me to stop making indecisive, unconfident, feathered lines as I might with finer pens or pencils and forced me to make bold, certain marks. 

This choice of pen had its negatives: the pressure I applied made little difference on the boldness of the line, the pen was very thick and didn't allow for blending, the thickness of the pen meant that I couldn't add small details.

Next time I would like to work with colour, a range of pencil hardness and boldness, pen and ink. I need to explore a range of media to see how I work best and what quality of line I can achieve from them.

I kept reverting to an illustrative style, changing the view in front of me to what I would expect to see, or what I wanted to see. Eyes became Nick Sharrat style dots, noses became simple lines. Characters evolved. This was not the intention of the task and I really struggled to keep within these restrictions.

Although the proportions of this image are completely wrong, I think that this image is one of the best I made today. I zoned in on one specific point of vision (a girl drawing), which was not moving too much so gave me the time to document her details. I think that practicing drawing static objects like statues or items on my desk might help me to get used to the process before I attempt to tackle humans again.

I'd like to prepare some grounds to work on top of, giving texture and information to the blank spaces.

Architecture is not my thing. It doesn't really excite me, but there are some beautiful buildings in Leeds. I don't think I've ever really looked up at it before.
I tried to sketch a building. It wasn't an awful first attempt, but I didn't like it. It had no depth, no sense of the immense scale that this building dominated. No power. This drawing is not worthy of comparison to the actual building. How can such a big thing be drawn on a small piece of paper? How can I show the details from so far away?

A different approach to drawing a building. Thick lines and shapes. I think that I prefer this method and especially like the solid black shapes within the windows, breaking apart the interior and exterior.

This technique of blocking out the separate shapes that make up the buildings helped me to increase the speed of drawing, working at a fast pace to get the vision onto paper. I think that finding a balance between speed drawing and slowing down to build on more intricate details is important. It's just a matter of scaling with the eye what needs attention and what doesn't require so much focus.

This is an example of how my drawing improved throughout the day. My hands began as very simple twig-like sprouts, but by the end of the day I was attempting to document the lines and curves of every finger. Taking it slowly, I could then draw hand gestures and my hands grew more realistic every time I drew them.

I'm excited to find out how my work develops through this project and I want to maintain a healthy drawing lifestyle. I enjoyed the intensity of today, of devoting such a long time to just drawing and it was fun to get outside and active with illustration.

MEGA Crit

Today was the day of the MEGA Crit.

I was very anxious about this task and the horror of having to leave my work for other people to see.

The work I'd produced for the Summer brief was finished and ready to show, but I was wary about how it might be received and how it would appear next to all the fantastic work of my peers.

It wasn't useful for me to enter the task in such a negative mindset and now that I have experienced it, I know that it wasn't half as bad as I had anticipated. Crits are nothing to be afraid of. My peers - level 4, 5 and 6 - were all extremely constructive and encouraging of everyone's work.

Things I saw:

+ Some excellently crafted drawings. It is obvious that this is what they love

+ Lots of beautiful line work. Strong and confident.

 - Lots of fine liner drawings! Move away from your comfort zone.

+ Some brilliant examples of playful practice. Experimental and fun use of unusual media.

+ Most people had devoted a lot of time to the project and obviously committed themselves to the task.

+ Great conceptual awareness and development of ideas.

Responses to my work:

Visual Quality

I like the Polaroid style/quality.

So well crafted and photographed.

I like how you've presented your work as a book, feels like you're reading a story when looking at it.

Good presentation.

Love the photography.

Really charming work.

Cutest thing I have ever seen!

Love the craft and experimentation.

Your work is brill, keep at it.

The little models are adorable.

The craftmanship and thought into characters really creates the image.

Concepts/ideas/content

Creative approach - using craft and photography to illustrate.

Sketchbook well thought out.

Nice idea to create a 3D item and photograph.

KEEP MAKING - a willingness to be crafty and hands on will take you far.

General Comments or Advice

Consistent, simple, yet effective.

Absolutely love this idea. Great amount of work gone into it too. Well done. Particularly like the bride and groom pixie dolls.

So different! I love it!

Keep doing this, trying new things out.

Although I was worried about this task, I found it really useful.

I have seen so much talent and professionalism that has inspired me. 

I have offered advice and been given some great feedback in return.

I will refer back to this feedback to inform my future creative practice.

We all have something to offer.

It was brilliant to see how the second and third year students have progressed. 

This really has given me an idea of what I am striving to achieve in the next year.

I really struggled with the nature of this challenge, but I have really benefited from it. I will approach critiques with a positive attitude in the future, willing to improve and be changed by such experiences.

Summer Project Continued

Returning to the reflections I'd made on my work so far in order to improve my summer projects. Fixing faults, changing images and making sure that the project is complete.

The image I had made for 'Something you would rather not have done' really wasn't working, no matter how I composed it. I thought about different solutions to this question and moved away from my original idea completely.

Re-reading the brief, I looked at the suggestions for this point and realised that my answer original answer didn't really make sense anyway. No one had told me to cut my hair. That was my idea and I had complete free will over that.

The brief suggests ideas like 'having to get a job to support your studies'. I've learned that reading the brief SEVERAL TIMES is essential in producing a coherent and relevant resolution.

  

I started to consider variables in my life that I have no control over at all.

Extraneous variables that happen around me without my consent, and things that I need to do, regardless of how I feel about it.

Growing up and adulthood is something we cannot escape from. I thought that I could represent this by giving my Jay doll a badge or a label saying 'RESPONSIBLE ADULT'. I wanted to pose her looking grumpy and frustrated whilst other dolls were having fun.
Another idea was to hang her up on the washing line, no escape. Hanging out to dry.

Standing in line, with no choice but to conform.

(well done if you noticed the spelling mistake in the sign above! Proof reading is VERY IMPORTANT...)

Typo corrected.

Does the image make sense? Is it clear why she is on a washing line? 

Is it even clear that this is what she is doing?

Last time I blogged about the Summer project, I'd highlighted that the 'something that tasted good' was another image which might need re-working. I didn't think that the doll looked active and thought that I could re-paint her face to appear mid-lick.

I really didn't like the second attempt. 

I don't like her eyes closed, they look too big. Her mouth is messy and there are lots of dents on her face from the several layers of previous faces she's had painted. The lighting is wrong, it's too dark. The image is too close-up, it should have been a mid shot to show the background. The ice cream is angled away from her face. Her hands are breaking.

I hate it so much that I want to take this photo down, but again, I'm trying very hard to accept my mistakes and move forward from them by acknowledging them. 

I tried to fix the tiny little picky things I'd pointed out earlier, but made even more of a mess. 

I much prefer the original. 

Don't fix what ain't broke.

 

Something beautiful.

I can't decide which image is the most beautiful. Does the Jay doll need to be present?

I really love the crafting of my moth, especially in this image, but I'm not sure whether it fits with the rest of my series of images.

Presentation of Final Images

I wanted some kind of structure in which to present my images for the crit tomorrow.

I'm a perfectionist and could take ages obsessing over how to do this but I know that this should not be the priority and that it isn't going to be marked. I would just like something to keep the images together, in a set sequence and to stay neat.

I wondered about hanging the images with pegs from a washing line like my 'Something you would rather not have done' image, but this would be much too fiddly and large to transport into college.

After some deliberation, I decided on a photo album format.

I also had the idea to mount the images onto slightly larger squares and present them in a little box.

I printed the images on semi-gloss hp photo paper using my inkjet hp printer. Lovely, professional results.

As any pre-bought photo album would have too many pages for my images, I made my own.

Black paper (170gsm), folded and easily bound with ribbon.

The colour choice of ribbon was another decision I stumbled at. I hate decisions.

I went with red in the end, to match the warm tone of most of my images on the pages.

Fresher's Flu is a Thing

I'm ill.

To avoid further contamination, I have been quarantined to a day of bed rest.

I really didn't want to miss today's session because the timetable noted that we were making masks today. Be still, my Henson heart! I instantly jumped onto the idea and my mind has been screaming all week about all sorts of mystical creature masks that I could make. I was so disappointed that today, of all days, I felt like death.

I couldn't help but get my hands moving again and my mind back on the game. I wanted to make a mask. I didn't care how or where, I just didn't want to miss out.
I wanted to make a mask that resembles me in some way.

I took on this opportunity as a chance to develop my construction skills and to continue my work regardless of my location (sorry to my poor bed sheets which are now caked in paper scraps),

Pinterest inspiration:



Papier Mache masks by Elsa Dray-Farges. I find these headpieces really creepy and weird. They're beautifully crafted and look very dramatic, but I'd find them much too scary for children. They would be difficult to actually wear as they would restrict breathing and sight - very impractical. It is obvious that this is an artistic vision and not a practical product.


A beautiful bird mask from a collection of performance masks used in a school production of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland'. I love the simplicity of this structure and the minimal use of colours and materials. This kind of mask would be simple enough for a child to make but also attractive enough to stand out and look beautiful in a performance. This structure has the potential to be made as complex as you would like, depending on the materials at hand and the context it would be used within, e.g. felt and fur would make great textures for winter animals, but may be lost on a big stage or wouldn't be practical for a small performance.


PLANNING AND IDEAS

I began by making a quick mind map of who I am and what I represent.
I am many things, but I wanted this mask to say something about me and my 'spirit', Something that could signify my personality in a visual medium.

I then started to sketch out important icons and images that link to me in some way. I kept on coming back to the 'Jay' of my name. It's a huge part of what I am and a big slice of this beautiful Jay pizza.
Jay birds are beautiful.

Jay bird reserach:


The Jay bird face isn't as recognisable as the rest of its body. I worry that it could look like any bird, not specifically a Jay. If I ever revisit this task, I would like to focus my visual research on Jay birds and spend longer working on a detailed design plan of the mask in relation to these findings.

Making a mask

Basic structure. Cardboard and masking tape. It's starting to take shape.

I'm really pleased with the beak but the eye sockets need a little more attention to create a squinting, wise expression. It took me quite a while to work out how I was going to attach the different cardboard features together. This process involved a lot of trial and error, putting things together only to realise they wouldn't stay in place or just looked plain ugly.

Adding various shades of brown paper and card stock. 

These tones are much to dark to look like a Jay bird.

Creating feather shapes.

This feathered face reminds me of the Fireys from Labyrinth. (see below)

I'd love to work with silicone and create characters to the degree of life that these creatures have. These puppets are also fitted with motors and mechanisms that control the eye movements,

For this project, due to time scale and practicality, I will stick with cardboard and paper, but this is definitely something that I would like to learn more about.

Me testing the mask. It fits! I can see through it and it looks effective. 

Okay, it looks very silly, but it also looks impressive and bold.

It doesn't look like a Jay bird. It DOES look like a bird. Perhaps more of a wise and fierce owl.

My little brother loved his mask, though it needs to be further adjusted to fit his head. In future bespoke projects, I would need to gather measurements before beginning construction.

He really enjoyed wearing the mask and commented on its 'cartoon realism' (7 year old genius). He would like to make one of his a Wild Thing (Maurice Sendak) and perform the story.

I think that I've worked very effectively today, making the most of the time I had and continuing the task even though I wasn't feeling 100%. 

I have learned about the importance of planning and preparing for a task such as this and I know now that next time I should allow myself a greater amount of time to decide on paper what I am planning to do, step by step so that I do not lose my focus or direction. I have thoroughly enjoyed making a mask but the challenge of creating something without a real audience or purpose confused me a little. I think that I sometimes work better from home, in my own safe place without any distractions. I need to get used to working in a busy, creative environment and to use this creative buzz to fuel excitement about my work, not anxiety. I need to also gain the confidence in my work to be able to present it and participate in group critiques. 

I am starting to become more comfortable with things going wrong or not turning out the way I expected. This mask was not exactly how I envisioned it, but it still turned out okay.

10 x 10 x 10

The Summer Brief that I was challenged with before starting this degree at Leeds College of Art involved responding to 10 different questions regarding what we have been doing over the break.

The result should be presented in a series of 10 images in a 10cm x 10cm format.

My initial response involved lots of sketches of objects and people, but I felt that the nature of this task was to capture experiences and that my drawings weren't as dynamic and lively as they could be. They were flat and told very little about how I felt. The drawings also often focused on a specific object, ignoring details of where it happened.

Although I really love this pattern of ice creams that I created using watercolour paints, they do disregard information that I think the brief was asking for.

In an attempt to 'educate' my illustrations and include more in the images I produce, I looked at other work that I had already produced this Summer and how that had strength in showing a lot of information in one single frame.

This is a bird that I made for a personal project. The bird itself is a papier mache sculpture. It is free-standing and can be positioned in any setting or role that I like. 

In this, it is possible to place the bird within a real-world setting, an environment or a back-drop.

I think that this is a great way of introducing myself to mise-en-scene and the task of re-creating an entire experience.

In this image, you can not only see the subject, but you can see what it is doing, where it is going.

I worry that this may not be classed as illustration. I am not following the conventions of traditional illustration. I am not putting pen to paper. My illustration exists as a photograph. Does that mean that what I have produced is photography?

The images must have a meaning, they must be trying to say something. I wanted to create characters that have stories and ambitions.

Transforming hand-drawn characters into 3D model versions.

Can I incorporate text into these scenes? Do they need it? Do they explain themselves?

Documenting experiences, I love how my illustrations in a 3D format can interact with the 'real' world, exploring the beauty in nature whilst also creating a weird fusion of unnatural events, an almost surreal distortion of the truth.

Making props for the dolls to use and interact with. They are people. They are alive. They are caught mid-action. What do I want to convey in the image? What is the most important event?

I had a little go at animating the characters that I created over Summer, through the method of stop-motion. 

This is Hilda Bindwood. She likes to explore. Again, she is fully posable and stands at about 7" tall. Made using papier mache and a wire structure.

The brief asks for the project to be personal.

I made a 'Jay' doll.

Following the same methods and ideas that I had found successful in personal projects throughout the Summer, I tried to make a little version of myself to use in the recreation of my experiences.

Something that tasted good. I made an ice cream cone using polymer clay and shot pictures of Jay holding it. I love the atmosphere of this image and how much depth this 3D format brings, but I would like to have a go at re-shooting this scene. I want to repaint the face so that her eyes are almost closed and are looking down at the ice cream. I want her mouth to be open or even her tongue to be sticking out. Maybe a beach themed background?

Jay reading. Not in square format yet. The rose doesn't add anything to the image. It looks like it's not been thought about and doesn't say anything other than the suggestion of romance, which is irrelevant. Get rid of it.

Close up of Jay reading. Euphoria. Enjoyment. Summer bokeh lighting. Head should be tilted down a little more to make a more realistic pose for reading.

It isn't clear that she's reading her. She isn't even touching the book. I love her pose and maybe a medium shot like this one rather than a close up shot like the previous two versions would allow more to be present in the background of the image. 

I visited Seven Stories in Newcastle. It was such an incredible place with beautiful children's books and lots of interactive exhibits. I tried on every single outfit. I got inside every reading tent.

Something I wore....

Paddington.

Astronaut.

Lamb.

Reindeer.

King and Queen.

Adorning my little Jay with the accessories of a Queen was a great way of sticking to the consistency of the doll's repeated outfit, but showcasing 'something you wore' as a special treat.

Something I have been listening to: vinyl.

Where do you listen to it? How? Do I need to make a record player?

It may be more clear if I made an mp3 player and headphones instead.

Drawing with light to give the illusion of sound waves. I could work into this further by hand-illustrating more abstract musical visions.

Something you have discovered: My rabbit LOVES chocolate biscuits.

He (Hampton) goes mad for them. I debated making a little tiny bunny to match the proportions of my doll, but I really like how surreal and odd this scene looks with the giant rabbit.

Although it is a photograph, a real thing, it looks unnatural and interesting at the same time.

In the square format, Hampton's ears get chopped off. Not literally. Does this take away from the scene? Is it still obvious that he is a rabbit? It took several attempts to capture the very moment of biscuit consumption without him biting off my doll's hand, but finally I caught it!

I made sketches of roller coasters, of clowns and the dark.

I am afraid of many things.

I have an anxiety disorder and the odds are that I am scared or worried about something right now. I think that the one thing that really scares me at the moment is myself. This big, evil, silly Jay who ruins things. She's evil. She's not me but she lives here too. She also looks very much like me and if you weren't paying attention, I'm sure you might mistake her evil actions to be mine.

I made an evil Jay. I don't like the angle of the image and I think that regular Jay should be in the scene too. She should be scared. I like the dramatic effect that a black and white filter has on the image. It is looming and tense.

She looks fierce and powerful. Regular Jay should look more afraid, with furrowed eyebrows and closed eyes.

Something you'd rather not have done: I chopped my hair off.

I'm finding it really tricky to encapsulate this event, because it was spontaneous and I was feeling excited and impulsive, but it was also a moment of anger and destruct.

This image does not show the BIG DEAL of this situation. Jay is not aware of how much of a huge mistake she is making, but then I wasn't at the time either... I'm struggling to reconstruct this event.

This image didn't work because it is misleading. I am chopping very close to my face here and the image might be read in the wrong way. I was not cutting my face, only my hair. The message is not clear.

The return of the paper rose. This is an appropriate scene to include such a symbolic flower. Utterly gooey, cheesy and sickly - this is something that made me happy.

The backdrop has the potential to be more detailed and say something else about the scene. Our cheeks could be more blushed and direction of gaze should be at one another.

I don't like moths.

I made a little moth. He's textured and pretty and charming. He's a sample of the natural world, only in odd proportions and made of sponge and canvas.

I like this moth.

Jay holding the moth. She should be looking at the moth.

Illustrated butterfly background accentuates the natural theme. Something beautiful. Jay should be more in awe of what she is looking at.

I have found myself in lots of places this Summer. Answering this question was difficult because it would mean going back. I would have to go back to Paris with my doll, or recreate something that represented the place.

I wanted to take this less figuratively, considering places that aren't physical. 

Ebay bidding wars. 

Too far into the internet. 

Lost in thoughts.

Labyrinth.

Labyrinth is my all-time favourite film and I tried playing with the idea of me being so obsessed with it that I have found myself lost within the plot.

This is Jay looking for the Castle.