The brief is to build on a project from an earlier part of the course while being guided by my own interests and inclinations in finding a subject. The process needs to include an objective and highly critical approach and … Continue reading Part 5 – artist statement
After doing a Fibonacci on the previous iteration, I put both of those plus the original sketches in view and set up for the next version. This involved taping and stretching a piece of A1 cartridge on the board, marking … Continue reading Part 5: Personal project – expanding on sketches #3
With yesterday’s A1 composite sketch taped up on the window, and another sheet of A1 prepped with black gesso, two A4 sheets of cartridge prepped with white gesso and glued into the places where I needed a white ground to bring out the colours, I began another version. The instructions say ‘any medium’ so, not having used paint at all in this module and noting that, quite clearly, artists draw with paint or what else are they doing, I broke out the acrylics. The difference for me in doing this now from before I began this course is that I … Continue reading Part 5: Personal Project – expanding on sketches #2
My first instinct was to make A4 prints of each of the four sketches: then stick them onto a sheet of A1 with pieces of masking tape so I could move them around if I wanted to. I wanted to. … Continue reading Part 5 – Personal project: expanding on sketches
This image seemed to say everything that would have drawn Maggi Hambling to it. Not that this would have been advisable as it represents the largest wave ever recorded. Somewhere in the north Atlantic between Iceland and the UK in 2016, this monster reached six storeys. The video describes these waves and their origins although not the one in question, and brings home the reality of our planet which is that, with no consciousness, it demands respect. We are of it but we don’t own it. I think Hambling’s sweeping, energetic, gestural style absolutely describes the alienness of this monumental … Continue reading Part 5 – personal project; sketches ideas #4
This image of humpback whales breaking the surface is one of those whose impact is not just in the sheer size of these animals but also their harmlessness – to anything larger than krill, that is. Until I began copying the photo, I’d thought there were three but began to realise that the cascade of water on the right and the deep, sucking swirls even further along are due to the huge open mouth of this ocean trawler and the massive, flexible bucket beneath its jaw; the mass creating its own microcosm of pools and deadly eddies. This was the … Continue reading Part 5 – personal project; sketches ideas #3
This is the second image and sketch (in terms of production but not necessarily with respect to its position in the final submission) in the projected group of four. It lent itself very much to Klee’s Golden Fish model and so, based on the earlier copy I’d done of that, I prepped my white cartridge with black gesso and used soft pastels to make a humpback whale centre stage. It’s clearly not as bright as the golden fish because, to retain its dignity which I felt it deserved, the palette needed to be more consistent with that of the deep … Continue reading Part 5 – personal project; sketches ideas #2
There’s nothing like being given free rein for scattering any half-formed ideas to the winds. I’ve been thinking of basing my submission around four themed pieces employing styles found in Turner’s Fishermen on a Lee-shore, Klee’s Golden Fish, Hokusai’s Great Wave, and Hambling’s series of paintings of towering waves. I’d thought to copy those pieces in different media (soft pastel for the Turner, for instance) thereby introducing my own style, and bring in text that related to each period. Then I remembered a poem called The Steeplejack by Marianne Moore which, in its first verse, says: Dürer would have seen … Continue reading Part 5 – personal project, sketches and ideas #1
When I copied this on Page 71/72 or Juliette Aristides’ book Figure Drawing Atelier (Monacelli Studio, 2019), I thought I was drawing an abstracted, blocky, illustrative figure of bare bones simplicity and I was totally taken aback by what came next: This: The shaping is provided in the book as an under-drawing; the task is to render the shade which is not. This plays to my strengths which rely more on reductive than additive drawing. I find I prefer to shade and finger-blend several layers of graphite (pencil) then dab away with a putty rubber to remove some, add some … Continue reading Heads, hands, and feet – from Aristides atelier
This section contains some exercises using cubic simplifications of bodies to get a feel of volume. For some reason, these just throw me in that I find the detachment from a whole figure confusing and unrelatable. I skipped those and went on to a copy of an actual figure, this one by Geoffrey Flack (2015). Mine is in graphite pencil and again I found some success with the gridding. I’m particularly pleased with the angle of the head but oh that hand! I think I might resort to photographing the original and zooming in on-screen so I can actually see … Continue reading Figure drawing atelier – volume
