Life Drawing
These sketches are from our life drawing classes included in our module.
This sketch was a quick, 30 second drawing with a 3B graphic pencil. I thought these types of quick gesture sketches were quite important in helping me perfect a quicker technique which will be important in regards to reportage I may do in public where people will not be posing properly, and of course if I choose to report moving vehicles it would be even more important.
This was a 2 minute sketch. I liked it because I thought I captured the expression of the model well, reminding me of some of Michelle Bedigian's reportage of people because of the angular facial details.
This was one of the longer poses we did. I didn't really like this one as I thought her body was a bit distorted but I thought it was a good attempt as it was a difficult angle to draw.
Another 2 minute sketch. Over the life drawing session I got more to grips with sketching quickly and so it was easier for me to sketch general poses.
A 5 minute sketch from our session. I actually thought this session was a little boring because our model was so concerned with looking 'fat' her poses were very static and unemotive, meaning my sketches weren't as characteristic as I would have liked. This sketch in particular was one of the more rigid ones that I disliked the most.
I liked this drawing more than most. After doing a more detailed sketch in pencil I rotated my sketchbook and drew another ontop using conté crayons (on dry paper). The pencil sketch underneath helped to make the second one a lot more interesting and added another layer of depth to the image.
I was pleased with this sketch because the foreshortening on the arms and legs is quite good. I used a softer grade of pencil (9B) which added a fuzzier effect to the sketch but I kind of liked this as it added a softer atmosphere to the drawing.
One of the exercises we were told to do was to pile 3 2 minute detail sketches on top of each other. This was an exercise I really hated because to me it had no use- why draw three detail sketches when you won't be able to see the detail properly because they are squashed together?
After the life drawing session we were able to draw from our sketches and refine them if we wanted. I chose to try drawing over the top of a toned background using a 2B graphite stick and then added tone to the drawing itself using different grades of pencils.
This was a sketch I liked because of the colours I used. I experimented with some soft pastels in this drawing session and although I didn't like the process of drawing with them I liked the end result. The edges of the pastels wore down too quickly which was something I didn't like. I think this kind of media would be better suited to either bigger pieces or soft shading.
This was another exercise where I had to draw poses one on top of another. However I liked this one a lot more because there was a lot more space on the page and the actual drawings are a lot bigger. I also liked the way the blue and pink pastels on the last drawing helped it stand out from the others.
The last drawing from this series is one I experimented with ink with. I thought the ink would add some drama to the piece but I didn't like the end result. I didn't have much control over the way the ink went on the paper and that was another thing I didn't like- I'm used to using pencils and crayons more which obviously allows a lot more control over the way the medium is used.
In my second sketchbook I painted a lot of the pages with vegetable oil to produce this tranclucent effect. I really liked this because the sketches on the next page could be seen underneath!
I split this page into four so I could draw the four poses quickly and easily. This page was a warm up page, which I can see clearly because I feel as though these sketches are not of the same quality as the later ones. I used a 3B pencil which was fast becoming my favourite drawing medium.
This was one of my favourite sketches, because the way the model was laid out on the duvet was a hard angle to draw and I feel like I successfully captured the foreshortening of the limbs. The tone I added was also helpful in adding to the three dimensional feel of the drawing, making it look more realistic.
I liked this sketch because of the illusion of movement it contains. It was a slightly longer sketch maybe 3 minutes and this allowed me to spend a little longer studying the anatomy of the model when she moved.
This was another page with multiple sketches on, like the earlier ones I did. Again I liked this better than the detail one because I was able to fill more of the page with each drawing and rotate my sketchbook to produce a more interesting composition.
In this I drew one side of the model with my left hand and the other side with my right. I also tried to match the pose the model was in to the shape I had painted the oil on the page. I did this in a number of ways to make different 'windows' in the sketchbook pages.
This was a page of sketches drew with my left hand, and then with my left hand without looking at the page as I drew. Although I wasn't impressed with the right hand drawing, I actually quite liked the left one, as I thought the line was quite good and gave the figure a good form.
This next series of sketches is a mixture of our two male models. In this sketchbook, the pages were painted beforehand and so were a bit more interesting to draw on. I tried to match the mood of the pose with the colours of the pages- so for this one, I matched the sombre pose with the cool blue-green background.
I liked this sketch because I thought it was an interesting pose. I sketched it quickly with a lighter grade of pencil, as I thought my usual 3B would look a bit too harsh next to the soft pastel background of the page.
This was a page I didn't like much in terms of aesthetics but in technique I thought was useful. I didn't think much of the pencil over the red background as I thought it got lost a bit in comparison, but the contrast between the red brusho and blue pencil is something I really liked.
I tried using watercolour as the sketch medium on this page, because I didn't want to use pencil for fear it would become lost against the strong background. I used a black paint and actually quite liked drawing with it- it wasn't too hard to control like I expected and it looked good with the background.
This was one of my favourite pages in this book. I really thought I captured the anatomy of the model well, and the slight tone I added looked really good, especially with the light background giving the sketches some contrast.
Because we were alloted a time of 10 minutes for this particular pose, I decided to spend the time doing three separate drawings from different angles of the pose.
In this one I swapped the pencil I was using with a paint brush pen my friend Liam was using. I liked using the pen because the blue looked good on top of the reds and oranges, and it was interesting using a new medium I've never tried before. I would probably have liked a little bit longer to experiment with the pen, but I can maybe do this in another session.
On this page, after drawing the profile view of the model laying down, I changed my medium again to the blue pencil and moved around the room to try and find a more interesting angle to draw at. I was really pleased with the drawing of the feet I did, because the foreshortening was a difficult thing to report properly but I think I captured it decently.
This was another interesting page for me. Although I wish I had used a darker medium to make the drawing stand out more, I especially liked the background of the page and I started adding a little tone to the drawing which I thought made it look even better. The tone added another layer of depth to the drawing and really helped the details to stand out.
This was another of my favourites, mainly because I loved the background so much. I also liked the contrast of using a fineliner pen instead of a pencil. I think the drawing itself could be a lot better but I thought I made a good effort on a difficult angle.
Out and About
A quick sketch in the park. Fast, scribbly mark making technique.
The same as the previous drawing. I like this because of the perspective of the subject.
A portrait of my friend also sketching at the park. Tried to fit the drawing in with the oil 'window' I'd painted on the page.
Used the oil 'windows' to add colour to certain details of previous page in the sketchbook (the next image). Felt tip pens.
This sketch was also drawn around a 'window'. As previously mentioned I did these in lots of different shapes on each page.
This sketch was drawn with a dark charcoal pencil. I liked the charcoal pencil because it provided a nice contrast against the light paper and it was easy to smudge a little to give some tone.
Again I used the charcoal pencil. I drew this horizontally so that the landscape would fit with the paint across the page.
In this sketch I tried adding a bit of colour, but because I had added oil to the page to make it translucent, the pigment did not take well and I didn;t want to use felt tips like I had before because I thought they would look a bit too bright in the image.
This was a sketch I spent more time adding tone to than most of the others I've done. Adding tone can really help give a drawing some depth!
This was a very messy ink drawing I tried. I actually used a stick to apply the ink, which made it difficult to achieve smooth lines because every few strokes I would have to dip the stick in the ink again. I probably wouldn't try this again because to me the result looks pretty amateur and there are other mediums I can get better results with.
This was a drawing I did using blue chalk. The chalk pastel was different to softpastels and conté in that it went on the paper more smoothly although it wore down even quicker than the other two pastels I've tried. The colour was quite nice, although it looks a bit scarce on its' own so if I tried chalk again I would probably try to add some other colours or mediums in with it.
I also experimented with using black sketchbook paper. To make the drawing medium stand out more I again put other colours on top of the paper. On this page it was yellow chalk. I drew over the top of it with a dark charcoal pencil which I thought looked really nice. The chalk gave the image almost a weathered look.
I also used watercolour paints to paint over the black paper. Most of the reportage in this book was drawn on the train home from uni. I liked using the dark charcoal pencil the most with this paper because it stood out a lot more than regular pencil.
I also used some graphite in this book. The graphite stick is an interesting medium because it has very reflective qualities, as seen in the way the light is shining on the media in the picture. This was a reportage sketch of my (messy) desk at home. I drew it because I've been drawing a lot of people and it's important to draw man made forms too.
This sketchbook was my smallest one. I drew in it with a 3B pencil and tried to spend no more than 2 minutes on each piece.
Yet again I coloured the pages of this sketchbook, and in this one I used chalks. The chalk had a strange texture to draw on, and it didn't really work with pens as the dust would coat the nib and not allow any ink through.
More reportage on the train.
My friend Richard. I've been having trouble drawing faces from profile so this was useful practice for me.
To fill up the smallest sketchbook which had had pages ripped out of it, I cut some coloured card out to the same size and drew on those.
In this sketch I used darker pencils of 9 and 7B to add darker tone. Although I was pleased with it as first I actually now think it looks a bit messy and smudged, which can happen when using softer pencils.
I enjoyed doing this reportage of the messy cafe. It was quick and easy to do and I could make use of a scribblier technique.
After drawing the initial sketch, I painted over this image in watercolour paints and then used fineliner to outline it. Then I used my calligraphy pen to add the text detail.
These last three images are some of my earliest reportage, of the beach in Hartlepool.
In this one I found it hard to get the perspective and proportion right of the pipe and rocks.
The perspective of this one was also quite hard to get right, although I thought it looked quite good when finished, especially with the darkened lines to separate the segments of path.
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