Drawing Week 1 Review

During the first week of observational drawing I took on many techniques to record and interpret ate real life environments. I really enjoyed this week of developing our key drawing skills and to make sure we draw what we see. It was quite challenging at first to find ways of sketching efficiently because of the constantly moving figures. I had to adjust and let go of old habits such as working very statically and precisely and work more loosely. This is a positive change though as I found as I would get aesthetically pleasing drawings which I would of never produced if I had stuck to my old techniques. I found as the days went buy my drawings improved. I sketched many portraits and the basic features and proportions were starting to feel familiar to me.

I did attempt to use different materials such as colored fine liners, permanent markers, charcoal and a variety of pencils. reflecting on my outcomes I found the fine liner particular challenging in terms of creating tone or shade. You can't build up layers and often I would draw eyes as solid ellipses making them to bold in my opinion, but the speed you can sketch with the fine liner really appealed to me. I also used different surfaces such as brown envelope paper which added a nice texture and gave really nice results with the photocopier and negative scans.

I started with a theme in mind based on people at rest, it then changed to solitude but in the end I made the decision to draw images which appealed to and were of interest. I didn't want to constrict myself and pass the opportunity to draw a particularly strong image. I felt when it came to development this would give me greater opportunity for image making. During the week I even went to Kellam Island industrial museum for inspiration. There I drawed many industrial machinery and components. I even met Mr.Hauly one of the Curators of the exhibit in the cafe who features in my sketch book. I felt this added a nice touch and a personal experience to my sketchbook.     

I feel I've learned a lot especially drawing figures from life. I found drawing the basic outline of figure was best and then moving on to shading and details after if I had time. I found later in the week though that I hadn't made as much progress with the number of drawings as I should of. This was because many of my sketches were a full page, and there probably was room for experimental processes. Over all I've thoroughly enjoyed the week of observational sketching and I will be continuing to practice, there's always time to improve.