Drawings with texture

After my initial attempt at depicting texture, (the strange looking knitting!), I tried again and had much better success.  I think it is much easier to draw natural objects as they have no hard lines, and even if one line is slightly out, it doesn't throw the whole drawing.

Using texture

This week I have been doing some exercises on using texture.  I had great fun going round the house and garden looking for different textures to draw.

I tried to use pen, biro, pencil, ink and charcoal.

I then tried to do some rubbings, or the posh name, frottage.

I made a simple collage from the impressions, but it wouldn't quite fit onto my scanner.  You can only see the middle bit, but you get the idea.

My next drawing was trying to use some of the textures that I had just tried to depict.  The drawing is of some knitting on two circular needles.  It is very unsuccessful, and came out looking like some weird internal organ!  But, it was the first time I had tried anything so difficult, so I will go off and have another go. 

Composition of natural objects

This week has been incredibly hectic, and I have not achieved quite as much drawing as I had first hoped.  My first sketch was returning to the theme of reflected light and I spotted the lamp in the corner of the room one evening and thought that would be a good subject.

I then went on to try 'Composition of natural objects'.  My first sketch of the peppers and garlic, came about after looking round our rather neglected vegetable patch.  Surprisingly, there I found two wonderful looking peppers which fitted the theme beautifully.  Sadly the drawing does not do them justice.

Having had only mild success with this I took my time to plan the second drawing using quick sketches to see which composition looked best.  I settled on the bottom right one and I was really pleased with the results. I still have a lot of trouble deciding what looks like a good composition, but I think taking the time to plan the drawing really paid off in the end.



Reflected light

I have been doing a few drawings trying to use charcoal.  My first attempt, the glass and bowl, was not very successful.  I think this was due to the fact I tried to do it in my A4 sketch book and I really needed a much larger area to get some good sweeping strokes going. 

I am much happier with my second attempt which I drew on  A2 paper.  It did seem a ridiculously large area to fill, but I think by choosing large saucepans as my subject, this somehow helped. The lid is not quite right, but I enjoyed the messiness of the charcoal.

I have now doing an exercise on still life sketches of made objects.  I have this time gone for objects which are quiet small, cotton reels and bobbins.  I'm not quite sure how to arrange the objects and whether there are any guide lines or rules on this subject.  I don't think I have got the composition right in any of the three sketches I have done.
   The pen worked better than the pencil as the drawings seemed more lively.  I think this area needs more consideration as the first assignment is a still life. Back to the books.......