Final drawing 3

This final still life piece was done in soft pastel, in an hour. The arrangement was done so that the eye sight follows an implied line, which is aided by the drapery, from the main focal point in the area of the brushes to the oil paint tubes. The overlapping of the objects, as well as the presence of lighter and darker areas create the illusion of depth. The tints of the drapery or the shades on the wall also help to create a contrasting effect. The method employed for the colours is a burnishing one, a realistic effect was achieved for the most part though there are several areas that could be improved even more.

Final drawing 2

This final landscape piece was done in soft pastel, in about 40 minutes. Combining colours to create a realistic effect was the main ideal and can be seen for the most part, especially in the case of the bridge that is roughly rendered and could have been drawn better, since the upper lines are ambiguous. As a whole, the landscape is sensitively rendered.

Final drawing 1

The final anatomy piece done in soft pastel in 20 minutes shows the model in a static pose, slightly resting his head and using his arms to keep balance. In its rendered posture one can see how weight is distributed, and that I believe would be because of the distance between the legs. The anatomy is mostly accurate though that might be in question as far as the head and the left arm are concerned. As far as colour is concerned, the burnishing method used for portraying the musculature seemed to work mainly, but the result might be too contrasting and for that reason the colours probably could have been blended more.

Week 12: Natural Landscapes in colour

This soft pastel drawing, finished in 10 minutes, was done in the excursion to Todmorden. The approach to colour seems to be impressionistic but at the same time appropiate for balancing the chromatics and the light sources of the drawing. In this composition depth is shown through the use of tones or tints of colours, that are applied through a burnishing method, layer on top of a layer.
On the down side, the landscape drawing looks far from finished and could be easily improved by use of more colour and by paying attention to detail.

Week 11: Colour in landscape at Centenery Square

This week's session we went to Centenary Square. These drawings were done in soft pastels in about 20 minutes each, and their single merit is how explicit they are in what they're supposed to represent.

More to the point, there are a number of  aspects that could have been improved, such as the use of more colours applied in layers that would have helped the overall result of both images. More cross-hatching in the case of the first pastel composition or more burnishing in the case of the latter would have made them both seem more realistic.

Week 10: Classical architecture

This week we went to the Alhambra theatre in order to draw its classical interiors. The drawings above were all done in approximately 20 minutes each using pencil. The theatre boxes drawing has an interesting perspective, the same can be said of the ceiling one though the first example also shows a greater amount of detail. The statue drawing shows to some extent contrasting detail in all the soft lighting.

On the down side, the shading could be improved in all so as to show the presence of light falling on the surfaces and that way create more contrast.

Week 9: Modern architecture

This week's assignment was to draw contemporary interiors at the National Media Museum. The drawings above were done in 15 minutes each using graphic markers. As far as the good aspects are concerned, all of the drawings show some attempt at showing depth but when it comes to light hitting the surface, the strokes are not really enough to create the desired effect. More use of the graphic markers for the glass surfaces in the case of the first example and the last one would have also helped and in fact more gray layers applied to all of the drawings would have rendered a better realism effect.

Week 8: Non-human anatomy

This week's session we went to Leeds City Museum in order to draw non-human anatomy. The animals in the two images are just two examples of taxidermy, placing them in context would have helped the overall realism of the drawings. The first pencil drawing, done in less than 30 minutes is of a bird, the anatomy is accurate, weight, movement and texture of the feathers are faithful to the real life model.

The second pencil drawing, done in less than 30 minutes is of a tiger. There's some foreshortening present, some shading mimicking the natural fur of the feline, though some lines should be less tough where there's more light. There's some attempt at drawing the musculature in order to portray the anatomy accurately.

 

Week 7: Balance & Weight & Dynamism

This week's session explored concepts such as balance, weight and gesture as well as foreshortening and oblique angles. The first image consists of four 1 minute pencil sketches, where one can see how weight is distributed in each different posture. The first two are dynamic poses with open forms, while the third is a static pose since the model is sitting in a relaxed manner. The fourth pose is also dynamic but seems to show more closed forms since the lines are pulling inward and the focus is inside.

 

The second 10 minute pencil drawing does not seem to be static since it requires the model to sit in an unstable pose, with tension in the arms as they are holding the weight of the upper body. The dynamic pose has closed forms in the lower body while the antithesis is happening in the upper one, creating tension.

 

The third 10 minute pencil drawing shows the model in a seemingly static pose as there is no tension in the body and the image is well balanced.

Week 6: Directed Study Week

This week consisted of drawing moving human beings. Thus, the below sketches were made in 10 seconds with the use of charcoal, two examples in two separate dates. There is a small improvement in gesture drawing which seems to describe each attempt.

Week 5: Figure Drawing - Anatomy refresher

This week's session was a reminder of our last module's figure drawings concepts, such as anatomy, proportion and posture. The first 2 minute drawing, done using graphite stick, is of a simple posture that aims to convey a small amount of anatomy details since the emphasis is on the relaxed pose.

The second 10 minute drawing done using graphite stick is of the model sitting in a relaxed pose, the altered posture changes the way muscles and bones protrude outside the skin, thus displaying more anatomy details. On the downside, there is some disproportion between the lower part of the body and the upper one.

Week 4: Still life - Foreshortening and Difficult perspectives

This is a 15 minute sketch of a skeleton using pencil. The image is supposed to portray the foreshortening principle but fails short in some respects because of the level of detail in the upper part. If it had reached a degree of completeness, the foreshortening would have been more obvious but nonetheless, the shrinking proportions of the spine as well as the smaller ones of the bones of the leg show the sense of depth required.

Week 3: Still life - Finer points in composition

This week's session consisted of an in depth study of finer points of composition. All of the sketches below were done in pencil in the same period of time allotted. The first example is a simple arrangement, where the rule of thirds plays a good part in rapidly shifting the eye sight from the main focal point of the central object to the other areas of interest of the bottle and vase. The overlapping of the two objects creates the illusion of depth while the vase is not left out and becomes part of the implied curved line of the image because of the lines of the drapery. The presence of darker and lighter areas would have helped the composition gain depth.

The second picture area still tries to go by the rule of thirds and the composition offers nonetheless more unity than the first example. The objects are overlapping in order to create depth, the focal point quickly shifts from the middle vase to the flowers and follows an implied line down.

The third example is less appealing to the eye since is shows a degree of simmetry. The focal point starts at the flowers, then the areas of interest sought after are in the same vicinity, the implied line seems to go by the pyramidical composition. Some objects overlapping create the illusion of depth while others have touching lines and prove detrimental to the composition.

Week 2: Still life - Form and shape

This week's theory consisted in understanding shape and form, the latter being portrayed in our session's drawings. This first 3 minute contour sketch done in pencil is a simple still life arrangement, the objects seem to be connected -even the tall vase- through the lines of the drapery, the main focal point falls on the smaller objects and the eye follows up all the areas of interest on the implied line until the top of the vase.

The second contour drawing, done in 3 minutes in pencil shows the rule of thirds in action and the composition seems to be helped by the lines of the drapery since the objects have some near touching lines in the center. The eye is focused on the frontal objects then captures each object in sight in a half curved implied line. 

The third 3 minute drawing, done using charcoal is a negative space example of the last still life arrangement.

Week 1: Getting back into drawing

The first session's drawing was a mere refresher for the all the skills learned in the previous module, which included efficiency and effectiveness in the drawing process. Hence, the 20 minute sketch using charcoal was made going through all the known steps, from the planing stage to the last part of adding the details such as the pattern on the cloth, these facts can be clearly seen since the proportions seem to be correct and the shading seems to portray the desired volume effect. The medium used has been useful for creating darker tones but comes as a disadvantage as far as details are concerned.