Drawing Bottles/Jars

This experiment was with pastels and drawing to scale. Firstly, I began sketching bottles and jars for a quick idea of what we needed to do. For the end process I had to draw the bottles and jars again which involved drawing them to scale using my pencil to measure. It was relatively easy to draw them to scale, of course the bottle took more time to draw. Once I sketched out to scale the bottle, I began by outlining the bottle sketch with a dark green pastel as it was the darkest colour to be saw. After outlining, I used other shades of pastels to make the right tones that were in the bottle. I also smudged the drawing in areas to make it look more smoother. For the jar I drew, I outlined most of it with white and used a small amount to fill in the sketch. The jar didn’t really have much colour, it was transparent. After both were completed and coloured with pastel, I made bold white marks where the shine appeared on both, this made it more accurate.

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A pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to product all coloured art media, including oil paints; the binder is a of a neutral hue and low saturation.

 

Colour Theory

I started painting a colour wheel in this session. I firstly had to paint in the primary colours which of course are red, yellow and blue. Next, to determine the secondary colours I had to mix between each colour on the wheel. An example would be that I mixed the red and blue to make purple (so it would be placed between the two primary colours). Next, I mixed the tertiary colours to place between the secondary and primary colours where there were gaps. The colour wheel did take time to do, painting isn’t my strongest point, but I got a fairly neat looking wheel. Also I had to paint some shades and tints which were relatively fine to do. By adding a little white/black to a colour it can change the lightness/darkness of it, which makes a tint/shade. The final thing I had to complete was the complimentary colours, colours that are opposite and cancel each other out basically.

• Primary colours: any of a group of colours from which all other colours can be obtained by mixing.
• Secondary colours: a colour resulting from the mixing of two primary colours.
• Tertiary colours: tertiary colours are the resulting colours formed when an equal amount of a primary and a secondary colour are mixed.
• Complementary colours: complementary colours are pairs of colours which, when combined, cancel each other out.
• Tint and shade: a tint is a mixture of a colour with white, which increases lightness, and a shade is a mixture of a colour with black, which reduces the lightness.
• Hue: hue is a colour or a shade. The attribute of a colour by virtue of which it is discernible as red, green, etc., and which is dependent on its dominant wavelength and independent of intensity or lightness

Life Drawing

This is an introduction to life drawing. For the next few weeks I will be taking part in life drawing. I think this will help me draw parts of the body and face better, even from a distance. The next few weeks should help me greatly.

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Quick sketches and drawing.

This week in the first lesson of life drawing, we all had to sketch quickly involving fast sketches of the life model. Dividing our page into 4 parts, we started with just a few minutes to draw the pose of the model. The hardest quick sketch was using my opposite hand to sketch the model’s pose in a few seconds, but, I managed to draw the shape some how. I think the quick sketches helped our minds settle into this new activity, and drawing the shape of the model quickly was very tricky, because I usually like to draw very patiently and precise. But, I managed and I really liked doing it this way.

For the next part of the lesson, we had a demonstration on how to draw the model proportionally. Using our pencils, we had to accurately measure the model. Firstly, I measured the size of the head, then I used the size to see how many times the head fit into the height of the model. Next, I drew the shape of the face, measuring similar to how I drew my self portrait in a previous lesson. I then started to sketch out the shape of the shoulders, lines/shapes of the body and arms/hands. I can easily determine the shapes of parts of the body by recognizing they’re the same size as other parts. Accurately, I was looking at a good shape so far that I had drew. Next, I started drawing the hips/stomach then I could determine the size of the legs. Then, I drew the legs/feet in place. Personally, I think I drew a proportionally good shape of the model.

Shading was next. I drew in the facial features firstly, which worked out well. I shaded the lightest parts firstly, then worked over the light parts and shaded some darker parts where shadows were. Then I started shading on the body, there wasn’t many things to shade, but I managed to shade well and get a good drawing completed.

Overall, this lesson of drawing the life model was surprisingly helpful. It helped me draw the human body proportionally and accurately. It helped me shade in the right way. I feel that this was awkward at first because of the model. But, it oddly gets more normal, and you can see how life drawing can help you.

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Painting

Painting with acrylic  was the next lesson which took place in our second and third lesson. To start with I quickly painted an A2 piece of paper with acrylic paint.

 

 

Self Portrait

In today’s lesson, I was drawing a self portrait. I used a picture of my face for this drawing. Firstly, to start my drawing, I had to find a way of drawing proportionally. I learned a new way to do find an accurate way to draw a face today. I firstly measure using my pencil, I determine the shape of the eye, and I draw it half way down my paper. Then, I measure the distance from each eye and draw the second eye, making sure the eye is the same size as the other one. Using the width of the eye and measuring the distance, I can next determine the size of the nose and draw that in. Again, using the eye, I measured where the lips should be under the nose. Next, I used parts of the eye/nose/lips to measure accurately where the jaw and the shape of the face start. I plotted the shape of the face with dots. Then, I joined up the lines and next I added eyelids and eyebrows. Next, I measured the distance from the eyelid upwards, so I could draw the hairline in place. I then completed it by adding the ears, hair etc.

The next step, was shading. To make it looking more like myself, I had to shade the right shadows and tones on my face to the drawing. I looked at the darkest parts firstly, and I shaded them in. I have to make sure I keep the shadows similar and the parts of the face similar darkness, so the drawing looks in the same contrast.

I really think this way of measuring a face accurately is very interesting to use. I’ve drawn a lot of portraits in my life, but I feel this was a successful way to measure. It really is very different to how I usually measure. Normally I would guess, but clearly this is a huge help. I really enjoyed this, I will be using this almost every time I draw portraits. I think it takes a little longer to draw this way, but patience is a great thing, because it helps you draw more accurately.

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To follow up with my self portrait, I also have been drawing portraits of different people from movies. I drew Lucy Liu and Pai Mei from the Kill Bill movies. I improved my skills by learning how to accurately draw this way and scale. It was helped me a huge deal and I am more confident in drawing portraits of people now.

 

Charcoal/Scale

Using Charcoal/Scale

In this session I used charcoal to draw to scale a set of keys. I thought this session went well. It was easy to use the charcoal. It’s very easy to use. I had to draw some keys to scale on A1 paper. Using charcoal I sketched out the keys. I wanted to make them proportional to the page, so the keys are enlarged by a huge scale. I noticed the charcoal does tend to powder on the page and create dust from it once it’s used on the paper. The dust doesn’t really effect the drawing because I’m using an easel. I thought this session helped me using charcoal better. Next I used the charcoal to fill the outline of the key I had drawn. The key isn’t just black, it has a shine to it and white areas. I used a white charcoal to draw over the black areas. A useful thing is to smudge the black charcoal and the white, it creates a smoother looking drawing. It looked extremely better when I started using my fingers to smooth out the charcoal. Overall, I am very happy with using charcoal, there are areas I can improve, but, I would use this again.

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Art Definitions

Impasto is a technique applied in painting. It’s where paint is laid on areas of the surface very thickly, usually so the brush strokes are still visible. Impasto can also be painted on when it’s dry and can provide texture.

Ground is the surface on which you paint, usually a coating rather than a support except when the support is paper.

Wash is a semi-transparent layer of colour. A wash of diluted ink or watercolour paint applied in combination with drawing is called pen and wash, wash drawing, or ink and wash.

Under-painting is where paint is subsequently overlaid with another layer or with a finishing coat.

 

Artist Research

Artist Research

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HARMEN STEENWYCK (1612-1656)

Harmen Steenwyck is a still life artists born in the 17th century. Here is an example of his still life art. He uses oil on oak panel for this particular work. When I came across this work I immediately got the idea of this. It signifies death and wealth. This work resembles “Vanities of Human Life”. Vanitas is a still life painting of a 17th century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change. I think this is a really good example of how a Vanitas painting should be. The skull resembles the death clearly, the shell and purple fabric both indicate wealth. The purple shows the wealth as purple was the most expensive dye in the 17th Century.

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HARMEN STEENWYCK (1612-1656) – 2ND POST.

This piece of art is another original one by Harmen Steenwyck. The skull, again, resembles a Vanitas style from the 17th century. This is quite similar in a way, to the piece above. The skull, lighting, background, table, style and display of objects all look very alike. Vanitas paintings were popular in places such as Spain and Holland with a high Protestant and Catholic Christian principals. These paintings were usually purchased by rich people who possessed a conscience about the wealth they had gained. The Vanitas paintings however, are very high collectibles and valuable commodities. The way he uses the oils on the oak is really great. His work resembles realism because it simply looks realistic.

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LEONARDO DA VINCI – ANATOMY

Leonardo started training anatomy of the human body with his apprenticeship to Andrea del Verrocchio. He became quickly mastered with topographic anatomy. He drew many studies of tendons and muscles from the human body.

He was given permission to dissect human corpses. Leonardo drew over 240 detailed drawings and wrote around 13,000 words towards a treatise on anatomy. Leonardo’s anatomical drawings include many studies of the human skeleton etc. He studied the mechanical functions of the skeleton and muscular parts that are applied to it. This helped his prefigure the modern science of biomechanics. Some of his drawings of the vascular system, the sex organs and other internal organs are far ahead of his time and if he published them, they would undoubtedly have made a contribution to medical science greatly.

He also closely observed and recorded the effects of age and of human emotion on the physiology. He also drew figures who had significant facial deformities or signs of illness. He also studied and drew the anatomy of many animals. Which involved him dissecting cows, birds, monkeys, bears and frogs, and comparing in his drawing their anatomical structure with that of humans. He also made a number of studies of horses

Facts

• Leonardo Da Vinci was the first to explain why the sky is blue.
• He could write with on hand and draw with the other at the same time.
• Contact lenses were first proposed by him in 1508.
• Bill Gates bought Leonardo’s Codex Leicester in 1994 for US$30 Million. A few pages were used as screensavers on Windows 95.
• His studies of river erosion convinced him that Earth is much older than the bible implies.
• A face-recognition software determined that Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, and 2% angry.
• Leonardo was homeschooled and lacked a formal education in Greek and Latin
• He designed an armored car, a scythed chariot, a pile driver, a pulley, a lagoon dredge, and a flying ship.
• He used to buy caged animals at the market just to set them free.
• His last words were “I have offended God and mankind. My work did not reach the quality it should have.”
• Leonardo was almost put to death for sodomy. When no witnesses came forward, his case was dismissed.
• There’s no evidence that any of the Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions were ever built and none of his writings were published during his lifetime.
• His Mona Lisa became the world’s most famous painting after it was stolen from the Louvre in 1911.
• Despite being one of the most famous painters in history, only 15 paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci are known to exist.

Perspective

Perspective.

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Firstly, I drew a horizon line (a line horizontal across the page). Then I drew the vanishing point (a small dot on the horizon line to indicate where lines meet). Next, I drew a 6cm line under the left side of the line to introduce the start of a square. After making sure everything is perpendicular and parallel, I completed the 6x6cm square. To make this square more 3D, it’s essential to draw some new lines. Orthogonal lines are next to add to this square. Essentially you only need to draw lines from corners that make the 2D square look 3D. So, after I drew the lines, it was looking more like a cube. Next was to add a horizontal/vertical line to the orthogonal line only. This is important to add as it makes the shape 3D. I made sure the lines were parallel to the original shape I had started. Each line was now in place, the perspective drawing is now complete.

Another activity I did was drawing shapes to scale measuring with my pencil from a distance. I was very pleased with being able to do this activity. I had to draw a square/rectangle basically to scale. It was very easy, the shapes weren’t perfectly straight, but I had done it to scale. Also another activity was to draw a 3D structure of hollow boxes from a distance. Drawing the structure from a distance was relatively easy at first. Just drawing the lines correctly and to scale was tricky, but, I finally got the hang of it. I think it’s a great way to develop on skills of drawing lines and shapes from a distance.

One-point perspective and two-point perspective

• Two-point perspective uses two vanishing points, connected by a horizontal line. Two-point perspective is useful when developing ideas in 3D.
• One-point perspective uses one vanishing point, and is used to draw room interiors.

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Comments on this –

This experiment with perspective drawing helped me more, even though I had learned this before in the past. Perspective can work into my art in many ways, it is definitely a process I can involve in the future. This lesson working with it was successful. I now know how to properly involve perspective. My cube turned out fine, it was quite easy to master, but, overall I’m pleased with the outcome.

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Words –

• Orthogonal – Two lines that intersect at right angles.
• Perpendicular – At right angles (90%).
• Parallel – Two lines that will never meet, they stay the same distance always.
• Horizon Line – Also known as “eye level”, horizon line is used to set things proportionally and help place things where they should be, also used as a guide for perspective.
• Vanishing Point – A point which helps place lines to make them look like they’re vanishing/decreasing. It’s to help converge the orthogonal lines properly at a point.

 

 

My Art > Dec 2014 – March 2016

 

 

 

2014 – Skull Drawings