Author: saravipond

HOMEWORK for Jan 17: Continuous Line

Jan 17: In-Class Perspective 1,2, and 3-point:

Homework for January 24: Invented structure

In-Class January 24: Perspective — Light and Shadow

Homework for Jan 31: Spatial Complexity

In-Class Exercise January 31: Group Drawing

MID TERM PROJECT: Pair of Perspective Drawings: Feb 1 – 14

Early sketches included thumbnails 4 x 6 of three or four different ideas. See below

I liked the stairs in my house the best, so cut out the thumbnails and trialed different layouts before went on to make a pair of larger (6 x 9) sketches. See below, with comments:

Decision made — technical work-up included rearranging cut outs, cut and pasting the two photos and marking them up to help me visualize vanishing points. See below, the reference photos for downview and upview, the marked-up reference photo, and the work in progress on the technical perspective undersketches….

FINAL VERSION – most of the day Feb 11 and 12, and half day Feb 13 to complete shading:

November 8th in-class work:

Figure drawings for canon of proportions, and portrait from live modeling each other

SKETCHBOOK ASSIGNMENT: Seven Studies of Facial Features.

Completed Nov 9 -13 at home. See below — the drawings and the photos they came from

Nose studies Sources: top one from photo. Lower one my own nose in mirror. It seemed to me that noses are harder to render accurately in isolation from other features, compared to eyes, mouth, or ear….

ADDITIONAL HOMEWORK: We were asked to “develop” one of the classroom portraits. I used the 10-minute charcoal study of Jorge, spent another 90 minutes at home with it but found it excruciatingly difficult to create a proportionate, appropriately-shaded face from my imagination rather than having a model or a photo to work from. At any rate… attached below is the result — not very successful!

November 15 in-class Life Drawing: see below a selection of slow and quick gesture drawings. Each image captioned with info about media, length of pose, comments

BELOW: Slow Gesture Continuous Line. 6B graphite stick. 5 minutes

ARTIST RESEARCH UNIT 3: David Bailin

I submitted the pdf through Brightspace Assignments on November 22. Also linking here in case more convenient to have all in one place….

November 22 In Class Life Drawings: See below, captions have some added information about each

Hands and Feet: Sketchbook Assignment. See below, the exercises from online videos by Leonardo Pereznieto on drawing hands and feet, and additional drawings from life or photos.

SELF-DIRECTED PORTFOLIO DRAWING: Brainstorming.

Idea 1: Vision lost and gained. This started conceptually — wrote down ideas about vision loss (thinking of my Mom currently living with progressive Macular Degeneration, inspired by artist research on David Bailin who addressed his father’s memory loss in his drawings). Also about vision gained (thinking of me, working to learn a new WAY of seeing, to help me draw). See below, written notes and couple of thumbnails.

Idea 2: Paper View. The thumbnail I drew for idea 1 got me imagining what the paper was seeing as I leaned over it to draw. Here are a couple of sketchbook pages with penciled thumbnails and a few written notes on this idea:

COMPOSITION TRIALS FOR IDEA 2: Landscape versus portrait: hands-down I prefer portrait because it positions the pencil at the apex of the drawing. I’d like the attention of the person in the picture, and the attention of those looking at the work. to be drawn to that point of contact pencil with paper. And I’d like the expression to be one of rapt attention. The idea is that the person is servant to the hand and pencil — in the landscape version, the person and the hand with pencil seem more like equals. Comic versus serene/attentive: the comic one doesn’t resonate with my motivation for the work. I wanted to try it because I found David Bailin’s use of humour really effective, but maybe next time or for a different idea…

IDEA 3: Out Of Paper. I have a lot of origami, geometric shapes mostly, around my office. I’m attracted to the idea of drawing them, trying to capture their 3-D complicated selves, with all their interior space trapped inside the paper I folded them from. SO I just started drawing ideas – tried completed shapes, then shapes in the process of being folded, then started a very technical version then an impressionistic version —  but really stumbled on the limits of my patience and my technique to enact these exactly geometric figures with all the perspective issues.    Something to return to when I have more time / patience / skills??

NEXT STEPS — I am most interested in Idea 2. Consult with Linda on Nov 22: not sure how to deal with mirror images, which is what I need to draw from if using my face and my hand as the model. The right/left-handed thing is tricky. And I’m not sure how to capture consistent lighting. Photograph like the one below could be a lighting aide —

FURTHER NOTES: November 26. Discussed with Linda in class Nov 22. Okay to use mirror for self-portrait and to use photos to capture consistent lighting of hand/face. Considerations from her — what proportion of drawing is negative space? How treat the negative space?

See Below: two larger-format trials: one in graphite (9B stick on paper toned with 6B dust) and one on paper toned with compressed charcoal, initial marks by willow charcoal to get proportions right, and starting to add some darker marks with compressed charcoal. See notes on composition with each.

DOCUMENTING PROGRESS — Nov 26 through Dec 6th: see below

NOTES ON FINAL IMAGE (prior to in-class critique): So much different with the green tape removed from the edges!! This was taken in natural light instead of my LED-lit office space. I like it better. Facial features — i think eyes and mouth are a little too small. The eyes are distorted somewhat (made smaller) by the glasses but should still have taken more space on the page, I think. Will be interesting to see what emotional tone people feel from the work…

October 11 class: Form defined by light — negative space, value, and form exercises

Form: Spheres: above with 9B soluble graphite; below with 6B graphite

Work At Home 15 October. Repeat sphere shapes with charcoal, on white paper and on toned paper. Try more complex shape also on mid-value toned paper.

Sketchbook Exercise Unit 2: Value 3 ways.

see below, my home sketches of side-light Buddha statue — once with charcoal, once with graphite, and once with pen crosshatching. Very interesting exercise, difficult to achieve same value with the different media, but pleased with the range of darks to lights within each piece. Not so happy with how variable the drawing accuracy turned out!

STUDY 4: Form Defined by Light

This was completed entirely in class time on October 18. Four thumbnails appear below. I chose #1 because I wanted to tackle a lot of drapery folds, and because I thought the spooky styrofoam disembodied head would be very evocative in a piece with a lot of dark values. After the thumbnails, a photo of the original still-life FYI. Finally, Study 4 itself.

Artist Research Unit 2: Mary Borgman: posted October 21 in Assignments on Bright Space. Also posted immediately below for reference

Sketchbook Exercise Unit 2: Continuous Tone Value Scale. See below.

I completed a 12-step version by drawing directly on the paper with 6B pencil, then using blending stump (or variations like Q-tip, small sponge on a wand). I started using 6B powder partway through the process, applying with small sponge or blending stump. Also used kneadable eraser to roll off or dab off excess graphite. In the end, the uniformity of tone in each square isn’t perfect but it is better in this progression than in the 18-step one.

Next tried 18-step version, starting this time with powdered graphite on finger tip. Found much more control to gradually increase value over 18 steps, but my finger created a circle inside each square, which later proved very difficult to even out to the edges of the squares. Probably would have been truer progression if I’d left the original circles. Squares 13 to 18 appear better graduated in real life than in the photo. There are also a few artifacts from my handling of the paper, for example darker marks centre of squares 3 and 5 were the result of resting the apparently graphite-y side of my hand on that spot… sigh.

Sketchbook Exercise: Value to Express Mood. Completed 3 versions same still-life, over 3 days October 22 to 24. Side-lit with desk lamp to simplify shadows and bring out drapery effects. See below — the photo of the still life, then 3 versions with descriptors. And a final shot that shows all three side by side.

GENERAL TO SPECIFIC: In Class process on 25 October. See below: 3 shots in process plus final version( photographed at home, different lighting!)

Portfolio Drawing 2: THUMBNAILS. See below. Analysis and discussion follows

THUMBNAIL ANALYSIS: I chose thumbnail 4. It has asymmetric balance in terms of the size of the figures, left being round and right being tall and thin. However, there is approximate horizontal symmetry in the large blocks of light value left, dark value right. — and there is a dark positive space item that emerges from the lighter left half, balanced by a light negative space object emerging from the dark right half. The first three thumbnails treated the light source differently, being filtered through vertical railings that made the figures striped and seemed to make for a confusing presentation. For the fourth thumbnail the angle is altered so the light source sends a single dark shadow cutting across the page, which dramatically changed the importance of the main figures in the still life.

PORTFOLIO DRAWING 2: Work in Progress. See below, 6 images starting with mid-value toned paper (using compressed charcoal), then working from general to specific, refining general value blocks into details as I went.

PORTOFLIO DRAWING 2: FINAL See below the final version of the piece. Following that, a photo of the still life for reference.

Unit 1 artwork submitted in hard copy 4 Oct 2022.

Attempting also to post the items here on 5 Oct 2022:

Artist Research #1: BEILI LIU is posted on the FIN 110 Brightspace site, under Assignments. Here is the link to that posting . Also posting Artist Research #1: BEILI LIU directly to this site, immediately below:

Unit 1 Sketchbook Exercises: Line Variation and Line Density

Unit 1: Portfolio Drawing One WORK IN PROGRESS shots see below– thumbnails, several stages of the drawing. The final work is with Linda at time of this posting — will photograph and post next week when it’s back in my hands.

Thumbnails for Portfolio Drawing 1: see annotated thumbnails immediately below. See also text box under the thumbnails for additional comments on the composition of each

Thumbnails 1 and 2 have asymmetrical structure, a triangle shape with its apex to the right of centre. There are circular figures in each of the three main shapes, that draw the eye to move around the page from circle to circle. Thumbnails 3 and 4 are also triangular but with approximate horizontal symmetry. In 3 and 4, there is also a new shape — one of the trhee main objects (the moonshell) is switched to an angular object (6-sided form with triangular faces). I chose thumbnail 4 because of the potential for a strong diagonal line that starts the eye moving from the bottom left of the frame, in a series of zigzags to each circle in turn — top of the bell, label mid-carafe, top of carafe, shadow. See notes below directly on the thumbnail sketches, including ideas on thumbnail 4 about rearranging the objects and cropping the frame to improve the symmetry and rhythm for the final still life arrangement.