Week 4 - Foreshortening and extreme angles

In week four we continued a long the same subject of still life but we looked closely at the more tricky aspect of still life which is foreshortening and extreme angles. This is very difficult to get right and takes a lot of practise so we focused on drawing something complex like these skeletons, so that we could practise getting all the angles and foreshortening of the body correct. The first sketch was a very quick three minuet sketch which was to see how much information could be captured in this space of time. It was also a practise in trying to improve our ability to draw extreme angles and the foreshortened parts of this object.

As you can see in this sketch I started off making mistakes and the perspective and proportion is way off in this sketch but it did give me some foundations to work on and you can see in the sketch that their is some foreshortening and extreme angles but they are not accurate. This sketch does shows clearly how the angles of the bones in the skeleton are mainly oblique angles, this sketch also helps to show the perspective of how the skeleton was laid on the floor and the shapes that can be seen by the bones and the negative space they create.

The next sketch was a whole fifty minute sketch which was a focus on capturing the whole of the skeleton and focusing on the perspective of the sketch, detail in the skeleton, extreme angles of the bones and the foreshortening of the limbs and lower body. As you can see in this sketch a lot of detail is included you can see most of the bones and how they are connected also how the spine runs behind the rib cage and connects to the head and down to pelvise.

The perspective is good in this sketch as you can see that the skeleton is laid down and you are looking at it from a slightly higher angle looking down on it. I've managed to capture the extreme angles of the bones and also of how each limb is positioned really well. Foreshortening can be seen at the back where the lower back bones, pelvise and legs join together. Overall this is a very well observed sketch and is highly detailed.

Week 3 - Composition

Week three was the continuation of still life but was a main focus on the fundamental principles of composition. The first sketch was a quick ten minute pencil sketch of a still life arrangement that was composed by a small group of students from our group. Firstly the primary focal point of this sketch is the flowers in the centre of the sketch. They draw the viewers eye towards it firstly and then the convexed lines of the two jugs lead the eye away and around the sketch. This has been achieved by adjusting the picture area of this sketch so that the flowers are more centred.

I feel there is an implied line in this sketch that stretches from the left upper corner and touches the top right edge of the first jug, then moves to the edge of the flowers and then to the bottom corner of the big jug. Most of this sketch has interesting rule of thirds except for the upper left hand corner which is blank and white. It seems to be a well balanced arrangement of objects and the proportion of each object is correct. You can clearly see some overlapping of objects in terms of the flowers, jug and object behind it. This has a mostly pleasing composition.

This next one is another quick sketch of another still life arrangement that only lasted fifteen minutes. This sketch is not fully detailed and finished but it does show a lot of the key principles composition in it. This sketch does offer some depth in terms of how the ellipsis are shown in the more rounded objects, also the way the objects are drawn from different angles adds to the third dimension. There a re some very strong lines in this picture especially around the cans and jars. Also there seems to be some implied lines, one almost in the middle stretching across the sketch where the horizontal line of the jar laying sidewards and diagonally across the page from the top left.

The rule of thirds is quite apparent in this sketch and helps the eye move around the sketch by following the lines of each object. It also shows good use of negative space because the spacing between objects helps show just how close they are together in certain parts of the sketch. Proportion is shown correctly and well and also the object are position so that it appears to slightly unbalanced. The composition of this sketch is completely correct because the objects do seem to close together and some appear to kiss but it does give a good amount of overlapping with a for-ground and mid-ground.

The last sketch is the almost the exact same still life set up as seen in the previous sketch but was moved over so slightly, I have focused on more detail and cleaner lines so that the rules of composition can be clearly seen in the sketch. This is took me thirty minutes to draw and shade. There is a definite amount of depth in the sketch, the drapery, shading and positioning of objects all add to the effect of a third dimension. This is a more refined drawing and has very strong and bold lines which lead the eye around each individual still life object.

A strong sense of overlapping can be seen in the sketch with large jar position horizontally across the for-ground and the other objects leading to the mid-ground and drapery as the background. This sketch seems to be fairly well balanced with two jars on one side and the cans on the other, it also had good proportion as you can see how the objects more to the front are larger and those at the back are slightly smaller. This sketch offers contrast because you can see lighter and darker shades if grey which represent where the light and shade is cast. The primary focal point of this sketch is in the middle where the most detail is seen

Week 2 - Mass, Form and Shape

Week two was the start of still life the main focus of this week was mass, form and shape, we started by drawing a number of still life objects that were arranged in a interesting composition on a table in the centre of the room. The first sketch I did was a twenty five minute sketch done in charcoal, this sketch focuses on some of the key principles of still life, shape, composition, mass and form. This sketch is a focus on just the siluette of the shapes in this still life arrangement.

This sketch shows a  interesting composition but does show some kissing objects which isn't that great but I think their is enough detail to tell that some objects are further away than others. The shape of the objects and also the way the drapery connects them together is shown very well in this sketch, It also has good proportion and mass which makes it easy to see that the objects a all different sizes and that they all have some mass to them. The sketch uses strong convex curved lines to accentuate the curves in some of the more rounded objects.

The second sketch I did was only a twenty minute sketch and again this was a focus on the shape, form and mass of these still life objects. Starting off with the shape, the shape  of these objects is shown very clearly in this sketch the contour lines are bold and continuous to form the whole shape of each object. The smooth, continuous, convex curved lines really help to accentuate the shape of the more rounded objects. 

In this sketch the form of the objects can be seen which help to interpret the third dimension to this sketch and gives a sense of distance between certain objects. The addition of drapery to the sketch gives the objects mass and grounds the objects to the table instead of having them floating around. The arrangement of these objects could have been improved because they a too squashed together and look like they are kissing.

This last sketch was a focus on drawing the concept of negitive space within still life arrangements. This sketch onlyincludes the sillute of each objectand no detail what so ever, this allows us to see the negitive spacing around the arrangement, the shape and form of the objects together in one mass and also the external lines of each object. From this sketch it is easy that there is a line just leading from the top left edge of the tallest still life object and stretching down a long the edges of the other two objects.

Week 1 - Introduction to Observational Drawing

Week one was a introduction to the observational drawing module and it gave us a chance to refresh our observational drawing skills and get back in to drawing again. We did some long sketches of a still life table, chair and drapery set up. The drawing above is a forty minute sketch that was done in charcoal and focused on getting the proportions of the set up correctly by using measuring, also to get the external and internal shapes of the chair and table legs and the way the drapery forms shapes as it falls on to the two objects. This sketch also focuses on to the detail of the checkered drapery and how the lines bend and form around the objects, light and darker areas of this patterned design.

This sketch shows a good sense of weight regarding how the cloth drapes over the chair and hangs over the sides of the tables. This also shows how the two objects are connected together by the hanging drapery drawing the eye towards the hole in the centre of the set up this sketch coursing a point of intrest. The heavier lines around the drapery lead our eyes around the shapes of the cloth and the chairs. The rule of thirds is apparent in this sketch and includes activity in most areas of this sketch.