Exercise 4.5- Linear Drape
for this exercise all pieces were drawn with continuous line– the first two without looking at the page at all, the third looking at both the page and the subject. It was good to stretch the drawing muscles again after the time spent collaging, and I was glad to find I remembered the needed techniques and felt comfortable using them.
My first piece, drawn with four different tools. Two coloured pencils, one blue maker pen, and a grey brush pen- each picked to match one of the main colours of the fabrics. I really like the effect of each new layer being drawn one on top of the other. It helps bring more depth and make the folds and drape seem more pronounced, even though they don’t overlap perfectly because I was drawing blind.
Below is the second piece, where I drew the outlines of the draped fabrics with a black fine-liner, and filled in the patterns using the same tools as the previous piece. This piece looks messier with the pattern not being fully inside the drawn lines of the fabrics, but it looks fresh and vigorous too, it was nice not to overthink but to try and draw by looking carefully. The first two patterns are a bit more successfully depicted than the second too.
My notes for the third piece: I ran out of room for the final fabric, need to check my spatial awareness for the size on the page.
If I had used a darker pencil, or a bolder tool, the changes in line would have been more prominent and noticeable.
I could have changed the composition of the fabrics so that when drawn in continuous line it was more obvious where one finished and another began.
Having evaluated, I decided to add the pattern in the same manner, but trying to bear in mind the points above to create more noticeable changes in the size and darkness of the line.
Exercise 4.6- Colour Mixing
Here you can see my foray into colour mixing and the different tests sheets I made ready for further paintings. Using with gouache paints, starting with the primaries (both cool and warm) and then mixing to find the secondaries and tertiaries of each selection.
Then I moved on to using one colour (a tube of green paint) to practice mixing shades and tints, with with and black respectively. The colours I mixed on the left of the page, what I had picked as my warm primary colours, look less vibrant and slightly muddier. But these were the best results I could get after a few tries and when I went on to use them to mix matching colours for my fabrics I also got good results, so perhaps they were just too dark to show well enough here.
Next I had to carefully find the colour mixes to match each of my chosen fabrics. A process which took a long time, but had good results. It was good to see the colours develop and through practising, I began to get an intuitive sense of how much of each paint to use and how to get the desired colour more quickly.
Exercise 4.7- Colour and Pattern Studies
This was an exercise I really enjoyed, using the paint well and in different ways, and looking closely to try and replicate the patterns on my fabrics in the medium of paint as best I could. I used my camera to choose which section of fabric to use in my study, and I’ve put them side by side below.
Exercise 4.8 – Gestural colour.
I started by mixing my colours again, and creating five sheets with washes to indicate my fabrics. I did two of the pieces with more accurate colour placement to depict how my fabrics were laid out, and three more loosely.
Next was to add the pattern detail in five different ways, each using a different medium or tool.
I looked back through the previous sections of the course to find methods that would look different enough from each other, and create a variety of effects.
After doing the washes of colour and adding the patterns with other methods and mediums I made some notes about the success of each piece of work:
For the first piece the soft wash and the faint pencil marks do sit well together, and colour palette is good, but it’s not striking and it’s difficult to see the pencil marks on top of the wash.
The bold marks of the marker pens helps enhance the flat wash, it looks complete and interesting.
For the third I found the black marks, possibly especially because I used continuous line, over-power the wash, but the small size of the mark making does show the drape and shape a little better than some of the others.
The fourth, using ink on top of the wash, looks good. They are similar mediums that sit well together, and the boldness of the mark making coupled with being able to depict the drape my changing the angle of the pattern placement is pleasing.
The last, collage, is more abstract. I like the block effect, as it’s interesting, but there’s so much paper that it hides and washes of colour, making it less effective overall, in my eyes.
For the larger drawing, pulling the best bits from the previous five, I decided I also needed to rearrange my fabrics as the composition had been bothering me–each fabric was the same length and width and it didn’t look very dynamic.
I decided to use marker pens and ink and draw two pattern fabrics in each, for the final drawing. I re-mixed my paint to be even more closely matched, after learning in the previous part of the exercise how watering down the paint affected the colour once it was spread and dried. This made the washes look more pleasing and the practice of applying the washes five previous times helped me get a less streaky, more solid wash.
I used gestural and exaggerated mark making, whilst also taking into account the shape of the objects in front of me and trying to show the flow and drape of the fabrics. The colours of the ink and marker pens are a close match to the fabrics patterns as well, and overall I think this is one of my favourite pieces from this section of the course.
Exercise 4.9 – Refined Composition.
This exercise required a full colour painting to carefully depict some of my chosen fabrics. First I tried out around 20 compositions before sitting down to paint; using the colour mixes I had perfected during exercise 4.7.
I’m pleased with the outcome of this piece, it had it’s hairy moments when the painting reached the “ugly stage” but each fabric looked good by the end. I was unsure whether to include any context or staging, like background or the shadows cast by the draped fabrics, as I’m aware they look a little odd just floating there, ultimately I decided against it as it wasn’t in the brief, and I didn’t want to detract from the desired look I had managed to paint. Finding the contrast of shadows between each of the fabrics isn’t something I’m sure I got 100% correct (the deeper blue cast shadow that perhaps should have fallen onto my paler pillowcase for example) and if I had used a more directional light while painting it might have been more obvious and helped me to include it, but I feel pleased with the overall look and ability to make each fabric look three dimensional and show the drapery.
Overall review for topic 2
After a couple of weeks looking closely into depicting the patterns and colours of my fabrics I was definitely able to notice how different lighting and amounts of shadows affects the colours. I’m hoping that having done this so intensely, that the ability will be easily attuned to new colours, fabrics, and objects. Certainly by the end I wasn’t needing to refer to my colour chart of paint swatches to know how to mix my paints, I could see more easily by eye and assessing what was there in real life, and mixed with confidence, getting it right almost every time.
My first colour swatches (from exercise 4.6) look muddier now compared to the clean colours I was able to produce by the end. Hopefully this shows my improvement and desire to work on something until I get it right.
Working from the two dimensional line drawings all the way to the three dimensional painting of the last exercise was a fun progression to watch. Seeing the different ways that the fabric came to life and seeing how to utilise each to its best potential. I particularly enjoyed laying together the flat washes and more accurate pattern placement, and how it made the appearance on the page almost graphic-like. I can also see how to do one or the other well–make an image flattened or have realistic depth–that the skill needs to be learned on both sides, so you know how to play with the possibilities in all the ways available. Especially if you want to mix exaggerated mark making and accurate depictions into one image.
Rebekah's OCA Learning Log 