28/11/16 - Lesson 9 (Homework)

 This is my homework, where I had to draw more space and close-up drawings involving people. Unfortunately, when I used hairspray to keep my charcoal from smudging, the pen came through the page but I managed to get some good pictures while I covered the pen up with some charcoal. It looks a lot better and I am rather pleased with how my speed drawings involving people have improved.

As we had the categories: BIRD / MAMMAL / WEAPON / HEADWEAR / BOTTLE / CLOTHING, I did attempt to draw each one and also include the cabinets and people within each drawing. I even combined a few of them, such as the man looking in at a war outfit along with weapons. 

28/11/16 - Lesson 9

In today's lesson, we went to the Museum in town to do observational drawings with dry media. We had to draw things that we 'nature' and 'man made' which concerned me a little since I didn't think I could find anything that I could draw well but as it turns out, I was pleased with some of my outcomes. I think that the glass baubles is my favourite drawing because of the beautiful colours I used, thanks to the oil pastels. The shoes looked very nice with the shading and charcoal and in addition, they don't levitate off the page as I added in the shadows on the ground. I liked the fact that I used charcoal to create the reflection of the glass cabinets as it makes the whole drawing more realistic.

As for the man made objects, I thought that the three baubles would be nice into a combined landscape image as I think they are very delicate man-made objects and they are very interesting to draw. However, I later added two more man made objects and kept the bauble portrait as one man made object. The soldiers clothing really appealed to me due to their style.

24/11/16 - Essay Draft 2#

Over the past few weeks, I have had both positive and negative attitudes towards the various techniques required to draw the life model. I enjoyed using certain materials like water-colour paints and coloured pencils, since it was something I knew I could do well with; but when using materials like charcoal, it didn’t always end in the result I wanted. I found this quite frustrating. Getting the body proportions to be accurate on my model drawing was also a challenge for me; mostly because of the body posing, and especially with the legs and arms.

After looking at Erik Gist’s work, of life model drawings with charcoal, I can see the attention to each joint on the body which I really like. This is one of his works; a 20 minute figure drawing. The body qualities are really defined in the darker areas, and the shadows are evident which gives the model a background, rather than just levitating on a piece of paper. When I give tone to my work, it does turn out very well but I want to make it more realistic. However, my drawings are too small so I can’t use my charcoal to shade in specific details. What I also like about his work is that he can get the proportions on point which at the moment I have trouble achieving, but only with the legs as they are smaller than the rest of the body.

I am going to solve this by doing practice drawings of legs in my sketchbooks and using my friends and myself as leg models. I also need to work on how I shade in certain parts of the body that have shadows as I can sometimes shade too hard and too much which can result in my drawing to become messy and flat. If I could have handled my proportions from different angles like Gist has done here, my pieces would improve so much with whatever material I use, especially with charcoal.                                  

                           

Frida Kahlo, who was well known for her self-portraits, is one of my favourite artists because of how well she observed herself when painting. I really like how she captures every detail on her face, but what I really find interesting about her work is that she often painted herself in backgrounds with objects that were considered surreal. For example, this is one of her most famous pieces, known as ‘The Hummingbird,’ which was considered to be an example of surrealism among the critics (Website: Simon Brew, MentalFloss) However, she claimed that she was only her own ‘reality’, where she felt most comfortable. Since my portraits of models don’t have any background to them, I feel it would be good for me to experiment putting a background or something symbolic into my work. I have done some of my models with two sets of water-colours, which I feel represents the darkness and lightness of the model’s position. Having a background based on surrealism would be an interesting theme for my model drawings. My water-colour portraits are probably my best ones as I can blend in the colours extremely well and really define the different types of shading on the body with it. Both of my pink and purple have worked very well here for the light and shadows but if I would have used Kahlo’s ‘reality’ background for the model, I feel it would have looked so much better.

Vincent Van Gogh’s work also stands out to me because of his style of painting as it really looks mysterious and could have many storylines entwined into it. Although he doesn’t do as many self-portraits as Kahlo and Gist, he does do wonderful landscapes. My favourite piece of his work is ‘Starry Night’ (Website: VanGoughGallery, 2002-2015). I love it because of the way he has used his paints as the strokes are quite long and because of the way they bend across the sky, it really looks enchanting. As far as paint goes, I have only used it to blend colours together rather than define each stroke individually to form a picture. I would very much like to use this style in my own work rather than just stick to one way of using paint since it will give my work greater depth and different variety of techniques. I feel that this would make a detailed and unique style for a background for a model and it’s the same with Kahlo’s ‘reality’ backgrounds.  I think that the biggest mistake with my portraits is that they are all too organised and basic. I feel as if I need to be more care-free and relaxed with how I draw and paint, rather than feel anxious with getting everything perfect in the first attempt. That means that I have to go bigger with the model’s size and include more for the background, whether it be tonal work or an actual landscape. This could also be something that I could practice with by using the university campus as a background since the fallen leaves create a beautiful atmosphere and landscape with their vibrant colours. As is evident with my work here, I attempted to give a coloured shadow to the model. This did not turn out the way I wanted to as it just looked like the colours had just formed too much with the water and just turned into a messy puddle. The colours have blended well on the model but I feel it doesn’t show the shadows or light at all. This is why I think Gough’s style of painting would work much better on the model as each stroke of paint would define the model more to look more realistic with light and shadows too.

During the next semester, I would definitely likes to improve in drawing accurate body proportions and using my materials differently each time, like just blending and using paints like Gough has. I hope to progress more smoothly with drawing models next year as I have some experience in drawing them now.

(1008 words)

21/11/16 - Lesson 8

Today, we were working groups and evaluating/grading each other's work. I liked this as it let's other people see certain elements of my work that I might have missed, positives or negatives. I was graded a C overall but I want to boost that up to a B, so I have a lot of work to do.

20/11/16 - Essay Draft 1#

ANIM1003 ESSAY

I am required to write about my life drawings that I have been doing for the past seven weeks; all of them having pros and cons about them. Throughout the weeks, I have had different attitudes towards the various techniques we were required to use on our nude model. Sometimes, I enjoyed using a certain material like water-colour paints and coloured pencils, since it was something I knew I could do well with but when using materials like charcoal, it didn’t always end in the result I wanted which was quite frustrating. Getting the body proportions to be accurate on my model drawings can also be a challenge for me; mostly because of the body posing, especially with the legs and arms.

After looking at Erik Gist’s work, who does nude model drawings with charcoal, I can see the attention to each joint on the body which I really like. This is one of his works; a 20 minute figure drawings. The body qualities are really defined in the darker areas, and the shadows are evident which gives the model a background, rather than just levitating on a piece of paper. When I give tone to my work, it does turn out very well but I want to make it more realistic. I think that mistake was that I did my charcoal figures too small so I couldn’t put in as much detail as I would have liked. What I also like about his work is that he can get the proportions on point which I have trouble achieving, especially with the legs. Reason being is that the top half of the model’s body is usually on point but the bottom half ends up smaller which makes the model’s shape look peculiar and not realistic. I am going to solve this by doing practice drawings of legs in my sketchbooks and using my friends and myself as leg models. I also need to work on how I shade in certain parts of the body that have shadows as I can sometimes shade too hard and much which can result in my drawing to become messy and flat. If I could managed my proportions from different angles like Gist has done here, my pieces would improve so much with whatever material I use, especially with charcoal.                                                                

Frida Kahlo, who was well known for her self-portraits, is one of my favourite artists due to how well she observed herself when painting. I really like how she captures every detail on her face but what I really find interesting about her work is that she often painted herself in backgrounds with objects that were considered surreal which does interest me. For example, this is one of her most famous pieces, known as ‘The Hummingbird,’ which was considered to be an example of surrealism among the critics.  However, she only claimed that she was only her own reality. Since my portraits of models don’t have any background to them, it would be good for me to experiment in putting a background or something symbolic in my work. I have done some of my models with two sets of water-colours, which represents the darkness and lightness of the model’s position. Having a background based on surrealism would be an interesting theme for my model drawings. My water-colour portraits are probably my best ones as I can blend in the colours extremely well and really define the different types of shading on the body with it. Both of my pink and purple have worked very well here for the light and shadows but if would have used Kahlo’s ‘reality’ background for the model, it would have looked so much better.

Vincent Van Gough’s work also stands out to me because of his style of drawings. Although he doesn’t do as many self-portraits and Kahlo and Gist, he does do wonderful landscapes. My favourite piece of work that he has completed is called ‘Starry Night’ because of the way he has used his paints. With a far as paint goes, I have only used it to blend colours together rather than define each stroke individually to form a picture. I would very much like to use this style in my own work rather than just stick to one way of using paint since it gives my work a wider variety. I feel that this would make a nice style for a background for a model and it’s the same with Kahlo’s ‘reality’ backgrounds.  I think that my mistake with my portraits is that they are all too organised and basic. I feel as if I need to be more care-free and relaxed with how I draw, rather than feel anxious with getting everything on point. That means that I have to go bigger with the model’s size and include more for the background, whether it be shadows or an actual landscape. This could also be something that I could practice with by using the university campus as my background since the fallen leaves create a beautiful atmosphere and landscape with their colours. As evident to my work here, I was attempting to give a coloured shadow to the model but this did not turn out the way I wanted to as it just looked like the colours have just formed too much with the water and has just made a messy puddle. The colours have blended well on the model but it doesn’t show the shadows or light at all. This is why I think Gough’s style of painting would work much better on the model as each stroke of paint would define the model more to look more realistic with light and shadows too.

(950 words)

PRACTICE OF LEGS

I wanted to practice with my leg proportions, so I requested the help of my flatmate who modelled for me. This was a helpful task for me as it helps me improve my skills.

14/11/16 - Lesson 7

In today's lesson, we were working with Wet Media again. It was nice to work with paints again as we were using colours to layer and highlight the tones of the models body. I was pleased with a few of the outcomes due to the colour but I ended up getting quite frustrated since the proportions of the body, especially the legs, were off most of the time. I am working on improving this but the fact that this is a problem in my drawings now, is starting to irritate me. I plan to practice drawing legs at different angles, with the help of my flatmates. 

07/11/16 - Lesson 6 (homework)

This is my homework for this week. I had a slight advantage as I was going home this week so I could draw buildings from Worcester and places from my hometown, Bryncethin in South Wales. The speed drawing was difficult due to the amount of people walking about so I had to be very quick. Some of these drawings looked better than others and I was quite pleased with some of them. It was speed drawing after all so some will of course be messy!

07/11/16 - Lesson 6

In today's lesson, we were combining Wet and Dry Media for draw our model. This was a nice change than just using pencil and charcoal as it allowed me to experiment more. The only problem I have is that I get easily frustrated when I can't get the proportions of the body right. My favourite ones have to be the first charcoal drawing and also my purple painting since the proportions and details are all quite accurate. Painting is one of my favourite techniques to use on a drawing and I hope to do it more in the future.

WORCESTER WEEK - 31ST OCT/4TH NOV 2016

This week was Worcester week where there were various trips and activities for everyone. I went to three activities this week which were: the Bristol Zoo trip, Acting for Animators and a guest lecturer session.

The Bristol Zoo trip was my favourite one since I haven't been there in years and I was able to draw new animals that had been placed there. It also helps that I am better at drawing than I was a few years ago. I am very pleased with my drawing outcomes, especially with the monkeys and gorillas. The fish were hard to draw since they wouldn't keep still and it was the same with the butterflies, penguins and mice.

The Acting for Animators was a fun session too since we could create our own characters based on pictures from a magazine. I had a middle aged model who was dressed in jeans and a long black coat. I made him out to be very rude and disrespectful since I thought it was an interesting portrayal. It was odd to portray this character since it is also completely out of character to me too.

This week was a good experience for me and it also let me catch up on everything, and even allowed me to do some extra work.