All posts tagged Learning to Draw

Sticks, String and Stuff

2013-05-22 20.56.06This week in drawing class we were back using ink and non conventional materials, experimenting with mark making while seeking to capture a still life.

In practice, what that meant for me, was ink, a stick, the remains of a pampas grass frond,  a two pronged twig, a leaf and a knotted piece of plaited string.  I’d found everything apart from the string in the road outside; but I was particularly pleased to use the plaited string, as I had kept it from a couple of terms ago when I found myself plaiting quite a lot of the stuff in order to make a three dimensional  drawing from the string and some bendy strips of wood.

There were animal skulls with curly horns and a guitar in the still life, but true to form, I was the one fascinated by the lacy table cloth and the peacock feather fan; it’s all in the patterns.

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by rowena on May 23, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on May 23, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/sticks-string-and-stuff/

‘Automatic’ Drawing

2013-05-15 20.46.20This was an interesting week in drawing class.  We were drawing with no plan, and looking at nothing.  It was all about letting the mood take over; and given the baroque background music the teacher played during the evening, lots of curls and swirls emerged.

Armed with only a piece of paper on the easel, some charcoal, ink and white paint in plastic cups and a couple of paint brushes, we had to stand as far away from the drawing as possible and fling a few lines onto the paper, and then fill in and improve it.  At various junctures during the class we had to move around and do what we thought would enhance our fellow classmates’ works, and at one point we were all applying ink from a brush taped to a three foot bamboo pole.

It was all very messy and quite good fun, although really all I did was make a mess.

And don’t you go trying to see anything in either of these.

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by rowena on May 16, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on May 16, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/automatic-drawing/

Collaging the Contrasts

2013-05-08 20.45.46Following on from last week’s class when we sketched in Red Cross Street in Southwark paying particular attention to the sharp contrasts in the small area, this week we had to make a collage reflecting on our impressions  of the place using materials we had made or collected ourselves.

As I had been fascinated by all the exhortations and homilies on the hoardings around the building sites on the street, as well the prohibitions on various signage, I noted all the words and phrases and printed them in various sized fonts and in different arrangements on coloured paper (it was almost like doing homework).  By the time I had finished, the words and phrases had lost their meaning, but retained only their shapes.

Then, I cut, tore and scrunched for a couple of hours in class, with increasingly gluey fingers and attempted to make an impression of the view from the little park, dominated by the looming Shard, and an ugly square block, but still blooming with luxuriant trees, and tulips, and its own sun dial.

It’s ‘automatic drawing’ next week, whatever that is!

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by rowena on May 9, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on May 9, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/collaging-the-contrasts/

A Street of Contrasts

This week in drawing class we were sent outside to Red Cross Street in Southwark to capture information to use as the basis for a collage we will make next week.  The street was chosen both for its proximity to the art school, but also because of the extraordinary contrasts that exist in a very short stretch of road.

2013-05-01 21.50.36At one end there is a small park, with a pond and two rather frisky ducks, in the middle is a primary school and the memorial of a site used in the 17th and 18th centuries as a cemetery for prostitutes, overhead are the viaducts for the railway lines into London Bridge station, and at the other end is a trendy restaurant and some flats carved out of warehouse space, and a large construction site hidden behind high hoardings.

Although it was a sunny evening, when dusk started to fall, it grew chilly very quickly, so many of my 2013-05-01 21.50.27sketches were rudimentary at best.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was however fascinated by all the the instruction notices on the buildings and hoardings; so many little homilies and exhortations to implement  safe working practices, and to be considerate to others, while not parking, loitering or generally causing any kind of nuisance.  I had to move away from all the notices for fear that they would be the only notes that I had in my sketch book, probably not the best basis for the composition of a collage next week.

But in the interests of allowing you to see the development of this project, these are my only notes of the street.  This final one, attempting to capture just how much the nearby Shard dominates the sky in the 2013-05-01 21.50.46area around London Bridge.

I feel some kind of wordy composition coming on….

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by rowena on May 2, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on May 2, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/a-street-of-contrasts/

A Monotone Collage

2013-04-24 20.59.29Gird yourselves, dear readers.  I’m back in drawing class, and this term I’m doing a course of ‘Experimenting ‘ with it, so there’s likely to be some mess made.

This week was the start of term, and the first task was to attempt to make a monochrome collage out of old newspapers.  The model was a very pretty woman whom I don’t think I managed to capture.  After making the first image out of newsprint and glue, the next iteration was to draw the collage, while the model had a stand easy and read the paper…..

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by rowena on April 25, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on April 25, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/a-monotone-collage/

Drawing in the National Portrait Gallery

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My Effort

This week we were in the National Portrait Gallery for drawing class.  Perhaps it’s because it’s one of the few public galleries open late on a Thursday evening, and because they are running a programme of special evening events, the place was packed.

For all the experiences I’ve had of drawing in galleries and museums since I embarked on this attempt to learn to draw, it’s the first time I’ve been bumped into, by someone with no idea of the size of the pack on their back, with such force that, caught unawares because of my concentration, I was nearly knocked off balance.

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Frank Auerbach Self Portrait

We concentrated in the areas dedicated to portraits from the 20th century. In each of the rooms we were invited to choose the portraits which attracted us and to have a go at sketching them while thinking about what it was about them that had caught our eye, be it composition, style or subject.

I started out with a Tony Bevan self portrait, attracted by the unusual straining angle of the head and neck, as well as the terrible hair he’s given himself.  From there I looked at a portrait of Clement Attlee, attracted largely by being able to sit down on the adjacent bench.

Finally, in the most contemporary rooms, I confronted Frank Auerbach’s self portrait.  At first glance it looks like a quick collection of random scribbles; but closer inspection reveals layers of marks underneath, laid on and rubbed out and laid on again.  But more than that, as I’m no good at the gentle delicate detailed sketch, this free style has the look of something I might achieve.

By its nature, because the point of the Gallery is to collect portraits of the great and the good in this country, it is the subject that’s important, not the quality of the painting.  This leads to a wide range in style and taste.  It was very interesting to see the different choices made by the members of the class, who I think were generally attracted by qualities other than fame of the subject.  No-one chose to sketch the ugly Bryan Organ portraits of Charles and Diana, nor the new dull one of The Duchess of Cambridge.

That’s the end of term for me, as I shall be away next week, so won’t be attempting a portrait from a model, but I have signed up for another evening class next term, so it’s not over yet.

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by rowena on March 16, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on March 16, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/drawing-in-the-national-portrait-gallery/

Drawing without Seeing

No, I don't know what it is either.....

No, I don’t know what it is either…..

This week’s challenge in drawing class was to sketch something we couldn’t see. We were each given a shoe box containing an object.  The shoe box had a hole cut in the end, and the only way to find out anything about the object was to stick my hand through the hole and feel it.  The purpose of the exercise was to try to find marks capable of capturing the texture of the thing we could feel but not see.  Every object was an amalgam of unusual things, so while you might be able to guess what one element was, the others would confound you.

I had what felt like a hard metal object wrapped in crepe bandage secured with gaffer tape.  When finally I was allowed to look in the box, it was indeed just exactly that.  Apparently the metal bit was the broken arm of a child’s toy robot.  Given how it felt, I thought it would be shiny, and had failed to achieve that look in my drawing.  However, it turned out, that the metal end was in fact painted black, so by pure cack handedness I had the right look for it.  As I was drawing, I knew I hadn’t got the proportions right, but decided I was allowed that under the heading ‘artistic license’, and if you’re going to keep the subject inside a Clarks’ shoe box what do you expect, but I was surprised at just how squat and square the object was compared to the sketch.

It was interesting listening to my classmates describing what they thought their own objects were, and how they had strived to achieve a representation.  Many expressed the attempt to imagine how light would be reflected off the surface they believed they were feeling in order to capture a sense of both the material and the mass of it.  And how else do we perceive visual images other than through the play of light?

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by rowena on March 11, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on March 11, 2013

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Drawing at the Wellcome Collection

20130228_184524(0)The Wellcome Collection was originally created by Henry Wellcome and includes thousands of artefacts associated with medicine and medical science.  Since a massive facelift a few years ago, it is now housed in the original Wellcome building on Euston Road, focusses on medicine, life and art in the past as well as the present and future.

It is free to the public and open late on Thursday and Friday evenings, which is why we were there with our drawing class this week.  We spent the time in the room containing an eclectic array of all sorts of bits and pieces: surgical tools, prosthetic limbs, blood letting bowls, skulls, ancient votive offerings and weird diagnostic models.  It was buzzing with visitors all evening.

I was attracted by the curves and ornamentations on the old surgical saws, even if it didn’t do to think too much about how they might have been used, and what that experience would have been like.  (The huge forceps on the other side of the cabinet were far too redolent of their purpose and made me feel a little queasy….)  It’s fascinating that they would make medical equipment with fancy shapes and engravings; it’s almost as if the plain old sawtooth edge was the least interesting part of the thing.  It was much more about the handle and the frame.

20130228_215354

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by rowena on March 3, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on March 3, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/drawing-at-the-wellcome-collection/

Music and Movement

IMG_3008Even if we didn’t actually have any music, this week’s class was about capturing movement.  We had a model, and life drawing, as I expect I’ve said before, is my least favourite aspect of this learning to draw adventure.

But if we do have to sketch a person, it’s best for me if we have to do it quickly, because if we’ve only got three/five/ten minutes, and the model isn’t even sitting still, how can we expect anything other than to make a bit of a mess?  It’s when I’m left with more time and a requirement that it all be in proportion that it all tends to go really wrong…

So these are the best of the several rapid sketches I managed at yesterday’s class (and no, although the model was very slender, he didn’t have spindly legs like that – he’d never have been able to stand up on those calves….)IMG_3010

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by rowena on February 22, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on February 22, 2013

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At Night on The Southbank

IMG_2982We were out and about for drawing class yesterday, at the Southbank, a much diminished group, either because the others didn’t get the email, or because they all had a hot date.

Spend any time at all at the Royal Festival Hall and its environs and you will see pretty much all of life.  There’s the river, the bridges, the lights, performers, tourists lingering, office workers rushing by, people scavenging through bins outside the shops and restaurants……people sketching.

Inside the Hall, there are people having business meetings or conducting job interviews, people on their own hard at work on their laptops, concert goers having a drink before the performance, and others just sitting and looking and listening in to their conversations (unless that’s just me).

Watch out especially for anyone sketching, because, if you sit still for too long, you might find yourself the subject of a drawing.

We were outside for the first hour, struggling, some much more successfully than me, to capture something of the scene in the dark.  My fascination with the structure of Hungerford Bridge overcame my certainty that it’s far too tricky for me to be able to draw, especially in the dark , when it’s difficult to see the piece of paper on which I was trying to do it; but heyho, it’s a class, and it’s about trying things out, isn’t it?

An hour outside in February is enough for anyone, so after fingers had recovered some warmth, we were set loose inside, to draw people.

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I think this man suspected I was looking at him and his friend, but I pretended to ignore him when he looked my way

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by rowena on February 15, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by rowena on February 15, 2013

http://rowenadunn.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/at-night-on-the-southbank/

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