Week 2: Sketchbook development and life drawing

Second week sketchbook work

In our second week, I was able to learn from what I experienced in my first week and create more simplistic studies that were quick and very basic. I enjoyed scribbling things I saw down in my sketchbook, and was often out and about to keep my ideas flowing. Some of my drawings when I look back at them are hard to recognise because I have limited the detail so much. Here are a few examples.

People on bus/in shopping centre in pencil

Light sketch of church

Church in Stockton town/fineliner

Buses and buildings in town

Back of man getting off bus - fineliner sketch

Buildings in Stockton town centre/bin in fineliner

Church building

Friend met in shopping centre in fine liner

A childrens ride in the shopping centre, fine liner and watercolour

Buildings, view from outside studio window with graphite and oil pencil

Quick drawing of my slippers

 

Side on drawing of Carly in fine liner

Drawing of my pencil case in mixed media - watercolour, graphite and charcoal

Life drawing

During our second week of the assignment we were also able to enjoy another life drawing class, this time with a male model. This was different for me after only ever practicing with female models, but I felt that this was a good opportunity to practice sketching the male form properly. Despite finding the process difficult at times, I also found it quite enjoyable. We, similarly to the last lesson, were given different tasks to complete whilst working. Some of which were quite fun, for example portraying the man in an imaginary setting. I worked with various media having found that this worked well previously, and used some colour at times, although this was quite limited in comparison to the previous weeks.

My immediate sketches were very quick and light with
very limited detail. (Pencil)

2 Harsher marks/graphite and charcoal 

1 Using fineliner and focusing on one section

Same as 2 - struggled getting the proportions right

Not very clear: putting the man in an imaginary situation - in
this case his home. 

Same idea as above, in this case model laid down with signs
saying "lay down if you need" and "Rest, forget"

Man from behind using graphite (I was more pleased
with this study)

Experimenting with watered down acrylic and
graphite (Proportions are off again!)

Focussed on foot in same media

Despite finding this session quite frustrating due to finding it hard to depict the figure accurately and correctly, I think on reflection it was an important part of my practice and I have learned a lot. I would like to try it again at some point.

Overall, I very much enjoyed studying reportage as it was a great challenge and I feel as though I learned quite a lot from it. I am very much used to spending hours on one piece of work, and so this pushed me well out of my comfort zone as I learned how to draw something in a matter of seconds, and then move on. I also was able to focus on drawing things like moving objects which I am not used to, and drawing outside in the open rather than in the comfort of indoors. Also, experimenting with new and unusual mediums was something that was new to me but was exciting and fun to do, and I was able to learn what worked and what didn't. Filling a minimum of ten sketchbooks in two weeks at first sounded like a daunting and impossible task but I learned new strategies and was able to manage my time in this project. I do however wish that I had further experimented with certain mediums or practiced more and more techniques rather than sticking to basic and traditional materials a lot of the time. I think though in conclusion that reportage has given me a lot of experience and is something that I will look back on in the future for help with my work.

Week 2 of reportage & Paper cutting

Sketchbook development:

In our second week, I tried to experiment more in my sketchbooks. Throughout our time of studying reportage I purchased a range of different sketchbooks, each varying in size and I even experimented working on coloured paper. I tried working with different materials too, and at one moment even experimented rubbing dirt onto my sketchbook to work on top of. I created some studies with limited detail, sketching lightly and quickly like I have previously, but also tried to experiment studying things in more detail as I did in the very beginning of the project. Here is some of my work from these sketchbooks. 

Daisies collected and drawn using graphite
fine liner and watercolour.

And again using watercolours.

Nail varnishes in pencil

Sisters hand on leg using fine liner

Lamp in pencil

Some bits and bobs from my bedroom using fineliner

Carly using fineliner 

My feet/socks in coloured pencil. Suggestive lines

Plug sockets

Drawing of my mam on the computer in fineliner

Traffic lights and streetlights in graphite
and water. I was quite happy with the effects
given and bold lines.

Working on coloured paper - another sketch of my mam with white pencil on pinch paper.

I drew this comb on top of strips of masking tape on
the coloured paper with ball point pen. 

Inhaler sketch on pink paper using charcoal, white chalk
or pencil with coloured pastel - I was quite pleased with the
result.

Greggs in town/shop front in fine liner

Unsuccessful drawing of a man and his dog with fine liner

Dog teddy in ball point pen 

Painted view from outside uni with watercolours. I was quite
pleased with this study at the time.

A drawing of my ukelele on coloured paper (not very
visible here!) using coloured pencil. I didn't like this
drawing.

Photo frame on coloured paper using acrylic (I think this
is a very bad painting. However it is very limited and I did
not attempt to paint it correctly)

Painted novelty ring using water colours and graphite/
charcoal.

Coloured pastel on coloured paper

Drawing of mermaid toy with watercolour and fineliner

Cupboards with ink on pink paper

Cars and streetlights from above view in fineliner.

Tiger ornament with fineliner, graphite, watercolour
and pencil. 

Street view/cars, lights, fence and path using fineliner.

Above: arcade tickets using oil pastel and below: cinema ticket using watercolour pencil and fineliner on top.

Body spray bottle using pencil, watered down
brusho and fineliner - I liked the vibrancy of the
colours.

Paper cutting

After a Visual Culture lecture based on Imperial China, we were later introduced to the art of Chinese Paper Cuttings. This is an art form that many artists today take inspiration from, and we looked at a selection of artists work who have developed their own style of paper cuttings. Above all of the artists we researched, I think the one that stood out to me the most was Rob Bryan. I find his paper cuttings incredibly impressive, I strongly admire the amount of detail and effort put into his work, and especially that he uses words and sentences in his pieces which I like to do in my own work. On his site he presents a wide variety of his paper cuttings, one that stood out to me a lot was this one:

I love how he writes beautiful messages in his work, on the blue vase in this study it says: "If everything in the universe is connected, then why not us too?" I deeply admire the way that he works because I tend to absent mindedly add text to my own work. His pieces are often sold as greetings cards, and also printed on lots of other types of merchandise. I love the delicacy of the art of papercutting.
After looking at the artists, were then asked to attempt the art of paper cutting ourselves, choosing a piece of work from a reportage sketchbook of our own to base it on. Armed with pieces of paper and scissors, I chose a quick drawing of a church from my sketchbook, before penciling out the design on some yellowish tinted paper and cutting it out for my version of paper cutting. I cut out different shapes of the big church cutting to give the impression of details like the windows of the church. I found the task quite enjoyable although it was very difficult to do with just a pair of scissors; it was very fiddly. I feel like I would maybe like to practice this art form more in the future and maybe experiment with different coloured paper, after seeing and being inspired by the work produced by my friends on the course. Here was my attempt of the church study:

(poor quality photograph!) 

Looking at my study now, and comparing it to the artists, I feel as though I could have added much more detail to my own paper cutting or perhaps have chosen a more detailed study to have worked from, but overall I enjoyed this practice.