Ok, so I've moved on from Assignment 2; Figures, and I'm now Observing in nature; Assignment 3

When I initially started reading the paperwork for the assignment and exercises within it, I found I was very confused!! There were some techniques and references I'd never heard of, like 'torchon' and 'sgraffito'.

So firstly, I did some research, I started with the descriptions of techniques I'd never even heard of, tried to educate myself using the internet. Then I ordered more materials. I've never really been a big fan of oil pastels, and it hadn't even occurred to me to use ink and pens to draw, but I thought, why not give it a go?! That is the whole idea of doing this course; broadening my knowledge, experimenting and learning new ways in which to express myself. Nothing about that could be bad, even if I discover that I don't like using particular materials or techniques.

It was interesting reading the booklet. It says "Some people enjoy the less predictable quality of line that you can achieve with a dip pen because it is very expressive and over-rides the convenience of using a marker pen". Having read this, I am very much looking forward to working with dip pens now, as I think I fit into the category of expressive. Bring on the exploration of coloured media!!

Having read ahead a bit so that I can prepare myself, I like the idea of the research points; for me, looking at other artists work is awesome; I can look at different ideas, which can lead to me having some of my own, for constructive criticism of my own work, comparing my work to others makes me understand the things I can improve on, and more than anything for inspiration. Seeing someone else's work that I find stimulating helps me raise my standard to work. Win win!

Portrait from Memory

The person I chose to draw is a very good friend of mine, who is a bit older, and she has been known on many occasions to look after me. There have been many jokes about her being like a mother, so I go to her for advise and often for comfort.

 

In my minds eye, the scene I want to replicate, she is laughing. It was Christmas time so she was dressed up, and she is laughing at something someone has said. Her head is thrown back slightly from where she is laughing, and her eyes are almost shut from where she is smiling so much. She has these amazing cheeks that accentuate her smile.

Above are my sketches of the person. This was a really difficult exercise, as I have nothing visual to work from apart from my own memory, which is not very clear over the details because of time. I really admire artists who are able to study a particular moment or person in so much detail and are then able to go away and draw or paint a portrait of that person. I unfortunately am not even close to that stage yet, but I'm aware that this will come with time and practise. I think that I have caught the feel of the person well, but the sketches don't exactly look like the person. The sketches hold some of the key features of the person, but not all of the features that make the person look like they do. I tried to do a few sketches, and parts of their features but honestly, this didn't provide me with much more information to add as detail to their profile.

Converting my sketches into a portrait was relatively easy, but I didn't get the overall detail I would have liked. As to the amount of time that I spent doing preliminary sketches, I probably could have spent more time building and adapting them. Were I to redo the exercise, I would probably have spent more time doing the initial sketches.

Other Artists

I've been researching other artists on the internet, for inspiration and to learn from others. I have had a few recommendations as well, some of which follows below.

  

Edgar Degas, did a lot of work of women whilst they were bathing or grooming themselves. He chose to do poses such as a woman brushing her hair. He painted them all in a particular way, and I can understand why he would choose to paint them in this way. In my opinion, it has to do with the exposed skin; these poses are distinctly feminine and striking. His use of colour and subtleness is what makes his work so interesting to look at. He has captured the shape and tone of each woman wonderfully. I can only imagine that he used to do a lot of these poses from a picture in his minds eye, as I can't imagine anyone would manage to hold these poses for so long. I like all of his work, and the way he has captured these women; it captures a simple private moment, one that happens everyday and has made a colourful creation from it.

He also liked to paint dancers. In my opinion, I think he was inspired by their movement and grace, this is why I enjoy dance performances so much. Also, dancers have to be extremely disciplined to make their bodies create such different shapes, that are not part of your everyday movements.

I particularly like the last drawing above, the description and use of tone is amazing; he's obviously used some form of pastels or chalks for the descriptive lines, and he's mostly used lines rather than shading to describe the movement. He's also cleverly left spaces in the colour and let the initial sketches come through, especially on the tutu of the dancer's dress.

Georges Seurat used a technique I'm not entirely familiar with, it looks to me like he used dots to create his images. It looks to me as though instead of using white dots to create the light tones, he's just used the darker dots and left the paper to show through for the lights. Whilst this is a very clever technique, I'm not particularly moved by his work.



Auguste Rodin, The Thinker


I have a model of the thinker at home, and I didn't even realise the arist was a famous sculpture artist. I have admired his work many times before without a clue as to who it was!
















What I admire most about his sculptures is the simplicity of his figures; the thinker is just a man contemplating, the kiss is two figures intimately embracing, stances, poses things that people do every single day, and yet the care and attention he has given his work, is what makes his work so powerful and striking.

I've always wanted to try sculpture; it brings an artists work a dimension that can never be achieved in 2D, no matter how talented. To be able to physically twist and turn and move your work around, and not just in rubbing something out on a peice of paper, is something that I admire and respect greatly.



I know that these aren't strictly figures, but Van Gogh did paint them. Since I've been looking at the figure in it's entirety; it's structure beneath the figure, I wanted to put these paintings in. The display of tonal range here is perfect. I can see from the brushstrokes that he used only small marks to create his overall work, and he does so with clarity.





Self Portraits 1889

Van Gogh's work struck me as very sad and emotional. Obviously most people know at least a little about his life, and how he chopped off his own ear, but even his works before then seem to me incredibly sad; the use of muted tones. When I look at his work, I always feel emotional and feel a great deal of pity toward him. I think because he based a lot of his work using emotions about his love life, as an audience looking at his work, it's hard not to pick up on those emotions. He was an undeniable genius when it came to his work. To still have such an incredible amount of admirers so many years after his death; I understand that he was incredibly poor whilst he was alive, and yet he continued to paint. I think painting was his emotional outlet; it was the way in which he coped with everything that was going on around him. A lot of his work consisted of self portraits, some of which are below.



Self Portrait 1887



Self Portrait 1887



 



 

I also wanted to look at some more modern arists to see they're take on the figure. These are the works I found that I liked.



http://www.studio81.biz/figurative.htm

These pieces are by Kristina Laurendi Havens. I have to say, that I really love this artists work. It's so interesting, and the whole feel of the work is so clean. I love her use of colour and tone. I would happily pay a decent amount for her work. I only hope that one day I am able to accomplish something as amazing as this work. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this artist via her website, so I can see any new work she does.

http://www.jenthewlis-art.com/figures.php

These works are by an artist named Jennifer Cussons. I like her work because,

and I particularly like her style of painting in the last two images, because of the way she has seperated the images and even missed out the sections so that the figure makes sense proportionally. She has a great understanding of tone, and can use different materials to display the figures.

The Moving Figure

I work in an office environment, and some of my colleagues were kind enough to let me sketch them whilst they sat doing their work. I did a few brief sketches just to try and sketch multiple figures in one go. This proved extremely difficult!!

    

They were all sitting around a long rectangular table, and I initially started drawing them without having drawn the table first. Mistake number one. Without the table, it was hard to gage the distance and relativity of the figures to each other. Once I realised this, I tried again, but drew the table I they were sitting around first and then placed the figures around it. After a couple of attempts, I started to improve. But then they started moving around! I couldn't win. Out of all of these sketches, I think the best sketch was the middle sketch above. You can see the difference in space between the figures, and you can see that some people were sitting close to me whilst others were further away. The other sketches don't demonstrate this as well. I think this is because I either tried to draw too much too soon on the page without properly establishing proportions and relative distances, as well as drawing the figures far too big for the page size I was using at the time.

A few more profile sketches of my work colleagues. These were more of an experiment, to test how quickly I can sketch, and the detail I managed to take down in that time, and the above is the result of that time. These sketches are nothing amazing; it would have been better for me to have the light and shade added to the general outline and features of each profile.  Considering the time it took for me to complete these sketches, more detail should have been included. This did however help me to start to get to grips with my observational skills, and working on my facial proportions.

These are some sketches as a result of a couple of hours sitting with some friends and taking in my surroundings. There was no real hustle and bustle about the place, people just sitting around with friends or family enjoying their Sunday afternoons. I decided to record my friends enjoying their Sunday afternoon as well (sketch on the bottom left). These sketches were very quick. I found that doing this exercise, I draw on a large scale, I think I was deceived by the size of the paper I was drawing on, and convinced myself that everything I wanted to include would fit onto the page. Will see what the result is when sketching on a smaller scale, and see if I still struggle to fit in what I initially planned before embarking on the sketch itself. I enjoy sketching and working with the foregrounds and backgrounds; bringing certain events or figures forward to the central focus, and having everyone/everything else as the background context.

All of the above sketches are a result of others watching a football match on the big screen, or standing around talking. The top sketch is a couple of my friends looking up at the screen watching. Whilst they were watching they were reacting to what was on the tv. It would have been better to use such an event in the fleeting moments part of the exercise, as it would provide some animated gestures and facial expressions.

The sketch of the lads sitting around the table caught my eye as they were talking very loudly about the match, the teams and just about football in general. They were happily chatting away, sharing a laugh and a joke. The sketch directly above was pretty much the same in terms of the movement that caught my eye; a bunch of guys laughing and joking and enjoying each others company, just a casual evening out.

A few people that I sketched whilst on a long train journey. Each of these people caught my eye; the first sketch because of his trilby hat, the second because the girl had curled up in the seat to concentrate and write for a short while before sitting upright feet on the floor to talk to her friend, and I could only see a small portion of her through the gap in the seat, and the last sketch I enjoyed because the gentleman in the picture was gazing off into the distance, and there was a stunning sunset out of the window which provided a beautiful light contrast making this sketch a doddle. I like experimenting and using more than one material in a sketch, as it gives a different dynamic and makes more of a statement.

I have surprised myself a few times in terms of materials; something I felt unsure about drawing has turned out well when using what I call a "bold material" (pens) as opposed to a "soft material", (charcoal, graphite pencils). Vice versa, when I have felt confident and used a "soft material", it's turned out that things can go horribly wrong.

It suddenly occurred to me whilst drawing that I have become more confident. For this exercise, I tended to prefer to use pens, where broader, surer marks can be made. I liked the assurance of something bold in my hand when making quick sketches for moving figures.

I spent some time in the park observing some people, either with their families or friends enjoying the sun, and this is the result of that day in sketches.

I sketched this after about half an hour of seeing the person. The reason she caught my eye because she was happily enjoying her music, she was looking at the floor, smiling and miming the lyrics of the song that she was listening to. The reason this stood out to me, is because I'm exactly the same; when I love a song, I mime the words, and have been known to dance. I think I captured her pretty well. I tried my best to keep the lines minimal, and I've created some decent sketches, especially after having to sometimes wait a while in order to get out a pen and paper to capture the moment.

These are some of the quick sketches I did whilst sitting and waiting. Just the street outside with various people going about their business.