Topic 1 – Expressive Line – Rebekah’s OCA Learning Log

The log and notes for topic one of part one of Drawing for Textile Art, Design and Fashion.

A test with three tools and several approaches to drawing a straight line – pressing harder and faster in succession. The bottom lines look most pleasing, fast and sure movement can be good!
Some sketchbook tests

What I’ve learned:

Even simple tools give you many options
To discard the idea that a line or mark needs to be precisely “right”
To let go of what I want something to look like, to enjoy seeing whatever it might be
To trust the connection between my hand and eye, and therefore the movement of the tool over the paper
Speed can be good, no need to be tentative in mark making
Trying different things can create things you didn’t think you would like
Consider which tools to use ahead of time, for the type of marks they make, especially if you have dual tools or colours to use in a piece
To trust my instincts
To remember lessons or good results from previous exercises, and take those thoughts forward into the next lot of work

Non Dominant Hand Drawing

Warm Up
In trying out different weights of line, and ways of creating them, I learned by seeing them all side by side that there were more options than I could have anticipated. It grew a sense of confidence, I felt pleased that there was already more to see than I expected

The marks I could make were softer and scratchier, but also more honest, and there was more control with the drawing tools than I thought I might have. It did leave me feeling more capable of doing expressive work. There is an almost wispy quality to the first pieces I did with my left hand, and as I grew in confidence using my left hand that went away. I like the effect but it was a product of being tentative, not done on purpose.

Exercise 1. 3 – I could see here how the different mark making results of each tool added a different sense of the object. How the pencil marks invoke a sense of rough surface quality on the object (a tea strainer), and the pen something smoother or more solid. Add to that the shakiness of using my left hand, and I can see that the lines in the drawing show an impression of the subject matter, even as it changes. I was learning that I could trust the drawing done by my left hand too, so the pieces are more heavy handed, though the shaky quality hasn’t gone completely.

Warm Up Exercise
Exercise 1.3 – two tools, one object
Exercise 1.3 – close up

Dual Lines

Exercise 1.4 – I enjoyed this! Two lines, wherever you make a mark gets rid of the idea that the line needs to be “right”, gave the object a sense of three-dimension, no matter the quality of the line. It looks freer, and looser, while still undeniably the object in question.

Exercise 1.5 – This small series of drawings began frustratingly, as I couldn’t fully see past my hands see what I was doing. It meant trusting in the movement, not my eyes. The results looked very pleasing though. Seeing them all side by side made me think about the differences in how the tools I picked also made me work differently. For example the pencil moved freer, so I drew bigger; the large brush pen looks more cartoonish and squashed, and seeing that made me draw more quickly to keep the same momentum.

Exercise 1.6 – Drawing with both hands at the same time took me out of my head, to let go of what I wanted it to look like and just let it be what it was going to be. It feels more intuitive, and therefore more real, in a way. Seeing two very different versions of the same subject matter side by side gives an impression of surreality and liveliness. Though I felt a little disappointed that they didn’t look as well mirrored as I’d hoped, though I enjoyed the act of doing it – which was a nice thing to take away from the exercise.

Two Tools, One Hand
Two Tools, One Hand
Two Hands, One Tool
Two Hands, One Tool Each

Continuous Line Drawing

Exercise 1.7 – There’s a confidence about the lines here, they were drawn with speed, I found that easier for the continuous line. Stopping to think with the pen on the paper made it hard to start the flow again. The ones drawn with my right hand (the middle two and the right two) feel almost too rushed. The left hand ones are less constrained, but like they’ve been done with more thought – probably because I had to slow down! It feels playful overall, and the line work is compelling to look at, which I didn’t expect.

Exercise 1.8 – Drawing blind, and with a continuous line produced a whimsical end product. It looks even less like the object I was drawing, but there’s no pressure to get it right when you can’t see so it was enjoyable to do and to look at afterwards.
Exercise 1.9 – These pieces (colour, in a continuous line) feel more complete than the pieces so far. Having to think ahead about which colours to use for the piece felt more like creating a finished product. I think I would have preferred to use two seperate tools for creating each coloured line, so they had different weights as well as different colours, but I didn’t think about that until afterwards. I think it would have made them even more like they represented a thing in real space. I still like the fluidity of the lines and the freedom that being constrained by a continuous line brings to the end result.

Exercise 1.10 (For these I used the same packaging, but different sections)
These took a bit more brain power to produce, almost frustrating to make decisions on where to change colours, as nothing looked entirely like the object in front of me whatever I picked. But it was fun, and the end result is pleasing. Adding blocks of colour at the end wasn’t as challenging as I thought it might be. And it gives a dual effect, the lines have one aesthetic to them – a bit wild and snappy – but joining them with sections of colour also draws them together into one coherent look, like everything is where it should be. I had to learn to trust my instincts for this, and not look ahead, to just let my hand lead like I had in the previous assignments.