Bowes Museum Reportage

When we went to Bowes Museum, along with my DSLR I took my small square sketchbook to get some reportage.

 

There were three sketches that I really really liked. This one was a pencil drawing of the Silver Swan automaton, which is made of silver, worth over £500,000 and is almost 250 years old!

 

Because there were a lot of Baroque and Roccoco features within the museum this meant there were lots of interesting arches and sculptures to draw. I really like this one because I think that theres a good sense of depth in the image and I'm happy with the light suggestion of expression on the bust at the top of the arch. 

Although I didn't particularly like the drawing of the architechture in this sketch, I did like the sculpture drawing underneath. I wish I'd had more time at the museum so that I could have drawn the full sculpture in detail but I'm happy with this quick drawing of it.

missmessymess

Another deviantartist, missmessymess has an eclectic collection of works, ranging from digital illustrations to reportage done in pencil and other works in acrylic on boards.

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com - the pencil sketch for the below piece

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

These are a range of her digital works. Their use of colour and texture is interesting, and the subjects painted are really strange and quirky and fit her illustrative style perfectly.
I like the simplistic style of the works- it realls works with the colours and textures and ensures that there isn't an overload of visual information in the picture.

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

Above are a series of reportage illustrations done by her, all based around a pub called '6 million postcards'. I love her way of shading and the toned paper she uses. They give the drawings much more character especially considering that they are pub based and the tones used fit this image. I myself would love to have a toned sketchbook to draw in and would defintely consider making my own- this is partly why I've been colouring my own sketchbook papers with paints and inks.

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

image credit to missmessymess.deviantart.com

These are her other traditional works. Most of them are done in acrylic paints on boards. You can see her illustrative style coming through in the way the same kinds of colours are used, although the textures are different to those in her digital works.

RESEARCH ONLY- ALL IMAGES CREDIT TO MISSMESSYMESS.DEVIANTART.COM

Experimenting with watercolours pt 2- drawing

So after I did some washes in the pages of my sketchbook, I did some drawings over the top.

I wanted a way to experiment with colours and I thought this would be the best way to do it as watercolour paints give bright colours and complimentary washes and can be used quickly and easily. 

This background was a mix of watercolour paints and soft pastels. I have been trying to match the colour to the subject as best I can, if that makes sense- so the earthy tones of this background fit the stag drawing on top of it. 

This was a redraw of a life model sketch. I used fine liner to draw it again because I thought it looked really sharp against the painted background.

A few more examples of drawings with. colour backgrounds:

These next ones were done with ink and brusho: 

First portraits

In our welcome week, on the Thursday we had a session drawing each other's portraits in different time limits.

The first exercise we did was to draw our hands three times in different poses.

That was my first drawing of the day, and this was the third hand drawn: 

This time I drew it in pen to make it different to the first hand, although I preferred working with pencil because it feels a lot more natural to me as one of my most used tools.

Then I started working on a portrait of Matti, however I didn't particularly like the results as I didn't think they were properly accurate to the way he looks.

Then I scribbled over the surface of my page and sketched Fiona from the course.

I didn't mind this effect but would have liked a little longer to work on the actual portrait.

The next exercise we did was drawing within a shape. I didn't like the profile drawing of Callum I did but I thought the 3/4 view of Sean was quite good. 

Then I went outside to do a few sketches around the campus. I used a softer pencil to sketch the tree below and was quite pleased with the result- usually I struggle drawing trees but I think I drew it accurately and I especially liked the leaves!

The penultimate drawing of the day was a scene sketch of a bench and it's surroundings. 

I liked this drawing too and thought my sketches were improving throughout the day. The proportions of the scene look okay to me and I think I captured the angle of the bench well. :) 

My final sketch was of classmate Tom Lewis and our tutor Ben. I was happy with these because I think I've drawn Tom's expression well and the general figure of Ben looks well in proportion and scale.