Quick drawings outside

These two drawings were made quickly in a small park near where I live, quite early in the morning.

 I used the viewfinder for the first time, but found it rather awkward trying to hold it up while drawing. I'll just have to practise a bit more...

I also took photographs of the scenes, which I may use to add more detail later.

Just went back and added a bit more detail to the first drawing, working from the photograph...

Assignment Two - composition

This assignment piece brought together a few favoured items - the clam shell, the teasels and pinc cone - as well as some bright pink cyclamens and nice small vase.

I placed them on a check cloth, which as well as being quite decorative, proved to be a useful means of getting all the pieces in the right position on the page, using the check as a grid.

As the previous post relates, I experimented with some other media (ink and patel pencils) before settlmg here on watercolour pencil (without water). Although the colours are much fainter, I guess I still feel "safer" working in this medium as it's easier to repair mistakes.

I must have spent several days deciding on the composition, and then the actuall drawing has taken me three days. I'm not sure the final piece reflects the concentration and anguish that's gone into it!

What have I learned?

I think I've learned quite a lot during these first two parts of the course. But I've also forgotten a lot of it too. I have to keep reminding myself of all the other media I've used over the course, and the kinds of techniques (hatching, stippling) that I've worked through. I will need to bring some of these back into use as I get on to the next stage, as they obviously can all be part of the artist's toolkit. The temptation at the moment is just to focus on one thing and discard the rest.

Anyway, here's the assignment piece....

Cyclamen on a check tablecloth

This was a try-out for Assignment 2, and I was still experimenting with different media.

I put a few items on the tablecloth but focused initially on the cyclamen plant. I used some plum-coloured ink for the flowers, marker pen for the stems and then pastel pencils for the rest.

The main reason is that I wanted to reflect the brilliant pink of the flowers, which is hard to achieve with coloured pencils, which tend to be fainter.

Halfway through, I realised that the items I'd arranged had no real relation to each other and were just floating independently on the cloth, so I decided just to finish off the cyclamen, and then re-think what to put into the composition, and how to position each item.

Bowl of fruit in oil pastels

In this exercise, I took an onion, pear, apple and a sliced lemon, and packed them into a small blue enamel bowl.

I think the result shows up all the benefits of drawbacks of using oil pastels. I love the bright colours which give a very vibrant effect. But I have to admit I struggled to get any real subtlety of shading or colour, possibly because of the limited range of pastels I was using. However, I did try to merge some of the colours, especially in the pear, to create both shape and shade.

On the whole, I don't think it's very well drawn. The bowl is not round (as it should be) and the fruits don't really "sit" in the bowl - they float without really showing the relationship between them very well.

However, I quite like the bright colours which create a pleasant pattern of colour blocks.

Two herrings on a white plate

In this exercise I used watercolour pencils (but no water) to try and capture the silvery lustre of two herrings lying on a white plate under a fairly strong anglepoise lamp.

In reflection, it would have been more interesting if I'd bought three fish and if I'd been able to lay my hands on a patterned plate. That would have allowed me to use more colours.

I also worried at first that the fish were mainly silver, black and a bit of red. I decided to use some blue to convey the "silverniness" of the fish, and I think that has worked fairly well (better, anyway, than multiple shades of grey).

I think I might try adding water to spread the colours and to get deeper blocks of colour. I've not done it yet, as I was worried about ruining the picture irretrievably.

Project: drawing animals

I don't currently have animals at home, so I spent an hour with a friend who has a black Scottie dog and a white West Highland terrier.
Fortunately, after their walk, they were happy to sit on a sofa and went to sleep, so I was able to study them without them moving too much. The Scottie slept with her head hanging over the edge of the sofa, which I captured, while the Westie snuggled into his paws.

I got these few quick sketches done as they settled down....

I also took a couple of photos of the dogs when they woke, and did this one of Ben the Westie.
On the whole, I prefer the quick sketches done from life, rather than this one from the photo - probably because you can get more detail when drawing from life.

Flowers in coloured pencil

This vase of flowers was past its best and some of the flowers were wilting and some of the leaves going brown. Since some of the flowers were white, I draped a blue curtain behind.

I used watercolour pencils (mainly because I have a good range or colours) but I didn't put any water on them.

I struggled to get real definition in the white flowers, using a grey pencil to do the shading. I thought about trying a different colour, such as blue or yellow, instead but my nerve failed me.

The picture took me quite a few hours and I'm not sure the results really reflect the effort that's gone into it.

Fruit in marker pen

This turned out to be a disaster. This was in part due to a limited range of marker pens (borrowed from my grand-daughter's collection) and the fact that I just had a bamboo dip-pen and just a couple of coloured inks to play with.

Therefore, I just found it impossible to get any subtlety of tone or shade. Also, once you've made a mark, you're stuck with it and can't rescue. Therefore, when I used brown ink to produce the harsh shadow on the pear, this ended up as a brown splodge.

So I've abandoned this piece, on the basis that it will only get worse if I add any more to it. So here is the picture, and a photo of what I was trying to depict.

I might try and come back to this once I've got some more markers and inks, but for the moment, this is the best I can produce.

The photo:

And now the drawing:

Fruit group in colour

I'm including two versions of this, because my first version went somewhat awry.

The big problem, I think, is that I tried to mix too many media. I started with coloured pencils and then realised I didn't have any orange to depict the two satsumas I'd placed in the group (satsumas are very hard to draw, I discovered!), so I went on to watercolour pencils and finally on to oil pastels.

The result is a bit of a mess, especially since I struggled to depict the darker shaded parts of the fruit. I didn't have dark orange (and anyway, the satsuma's dark patches looked grey, or even black), so I used black which really didn't work.

Anyway, here is is..

So I decided to give it another go, this time sticking with watercolour pencils from the beginning.

I'm slightly happier with this, especially as I was able to apply a little water to some of the colours to get the colour blocks. I built up from the lighter colours, such as the green of the apples, and then inserted the red blocks. Satsumas still present a challenge, although I think this one is marginally more recognisable than the earlier one.

Preparing for fruit group in colour

This was a bit of experimentation to see how different media worked in depicting fruit in colour.
I took an apple, and drew it first in coloured pencil, which worked quite well with fairly gentle colours.

Then on to pastel pencils, which weren't that different but did give slightly deeper colours.

Watercolour pencils worked in much the same way, but with a bit of water, it was possible to achieve different effects and brighter blocks of colour (as opposed to hatched areas).

Oil pastels provided much deeper colours, and allowed manipulation with fingertips to merge the different component colours. I was also able to scratch out colour to get the stripes of the apple's skin.
The only challenge with oil pastels is that they are less precise (no sharp point on the end), so it tends to end up somewhat more impressionistic than pencil. However, I teally like the medium.

I topped off this exercise with a rather nice shiny red pepper, which I did in oil pastels.

Conclusion: all these media have something to offer, and there tends to be a trade-off between detail and colour intensity. My current favourites, I think, are the oil pastels for their depth of colour, and the watercolour pencils.

Still life group in tone

At last a chance to use some colour, in this case watercolour pencils.

The instructions for this exercise were to build up from the dark tones and to "keep the drawing spontaneous and full of energy".  I'm not sure I managed that; once some of the dark tones had been filled in, I immediately got sucked into the detail of the picture.

One other problem was that I chose a white tray on which to place the items, which included a white jug and a glass coffee pot with silver top. This meant very littel colour in a lot of the composition, with me using black and grey pencils much as I would for a normal pencil drawing. I also meant that a lot of the highlights in the silver and around the top of the jug were impossible to achieve on white paper (maybe if I'd used a darker paper, I could have made better use of white pencil).

So on the whole, I'm not wild about the results, which look like a pencil drawing with a bit of colour added.

Exercise - still life group using line

I found this exercise very restricting, because I could not introduce shade or shadows to bring out the shape or position of the objects.
In my view the lettuce in the foreground is probably the most successful, but I'm not very happy with the overall picture at all.(Picture should be rotated by 90 degrees, but I couldn't manage it)

Exercise - still life

In this exercise I gathered some fruit (two apples, a large cooking apple and a pear), and put them on a decorative plate with a magnifying glass and a pair of scissors just to add interest. I then placed the plate on top of a wicker washing basket in order to "locate" it, rather than have it floating in space.

Although I have been experimenting recently with oil pastels, which I really like, I stuck to pencil here, using an HB to get the line, then a B and 4B to get different shading. Near the end I tried using a rubber to bring out some of the reflections and highlights (the magnifying glass and scissors picked up light along their edges making them stand out - I've tried to convey this with only partial success. I might try it again with charcoal).

Anyway, this is it.....

Research - detail v rough sketching

In this little piece of research, I looked at studies by Edward Burne-Jones, the Victorian pre-Raphaelite artist, and by Henri Matisse, who did most of his work in the first half of the 20th century.

In this study of two pillows by Burne Jones..

.. the artist captures the reality of the pillows with subtle shading using just pencil to achieve a fabulous and convincing effect. It is really indicative of the very accomplished craftsmanship of all the artists of the time, such as Millais.

By contrast, this still life study by Henri Matisse achieves its impression with a just a few pencil lines. It is by no means accurate - for example the vase merely suggests what the actual object might look like. But the sheer strength of line, and the flow of the lines (which I guess were done quite quickly) manage to convey the shape, position and substance of the individual objects, and show the confidence wih which the artist works.

Which do I prefer? I have to say I admire the technical mastery of the pre-Raphaelites, and I would love to be able to draw like Burne Jones or Millais. However, I would also like to achieve the self-confidence and sureness of line that Matisse displays here.

Rose using stippling

In this exercise, the aim was to draw using just a black pen, but to create tone and shade using stippling.

I have to admit I wasn't quite sure about the stippling technique, and was initially unhappy with the effect - the dots looked a bit odd and just like a lot of dots. But then I tried to doing the dots rather more quickly, and found it easier to create the types of effects I was looking for, getting a denser concentration of dots.

However, I still resorted to hatching in some parts of the picture where I was looking for a lighter shade.

Exercise: pencil drawing of clam shell

I put this clamshell under a bright anglepoise lamp located above and slightly to the right of the shell.

I rested the shell on the spine of a book to raise it and to create some shadows.

The drawing is considerably larger than the shell itself, so the A3 sheet was quite difficult to manage. I worked initally with an HB pencil to get the general proportions and then worked it up with softer pencils, including 6B to get the darker tones.

I used a putty rubber to pick out some of the bright highlighted parts.

Line drawing: Green pepper

I have to admit I set up the outline for this with an HB pencil in order ot ensure I had the rough dimensions, and then added the black outline.
After spending so much time in earlier exercises on shading and tone, it felt hard to stick just to an outline. For example, the centre of the hollow green pepper was really dark, and so it was hard not to fill that in with black.

Exploring coloured media - first steps

In many ways, it's quite a relief to start using colour after spending so many months with mainly pencils.
The biggest discovery has been oil pastels. I bought a big box of these with a good range of colours, and I've enjoyed using a much looser style and more extravagant strokes which they seem to demand.
It's also great that you can smooth them out and merge them with your fingers, and also scratch away the surfae with a nib to get thin white stripes in the surface. It's very liberating.

Exercise 1 - this involved drawing a tube with red at one end and blue at the other with the colours merging in the middle, using a mix of stippling and hatching/crosshatching. Although I didn't see the point of stippling at first, I can now see it achieves some nice effects (good for depicting shimmering water, for example).

I tried the exercise with oil pastels, coloured inks (using a bamboo dip-pen), coloured pencils, pastel pencils, soft pastels (very messy and not very successful for this this exercise), and watercolour pencils (these really came into their own with the application of a wet brush - the colours were bright and the effect is smooth and limpid).

Here's the first flourish with oil pastels:

 And here are the others:

Wallace Collection visit - and a splodge of white

One of my favourite galleries in London - on one of the least well known - is the Wallace Collection just north of Oxford Street.
This is a permanent collection that incorporates some great paintings from the likes of Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reubens and Titian, plus suits of armour and sculptures and ceramics from medieval times.
But the core of the collection is French, much if it dating from the days of Louis XIV, XV and XVI and Marie Antoinette, and bought in auctions that followed the French Revolution of 1789. This includes some furniture, porcelain, and a lot of paintings from the likes of Fragonard, Watteau and Boucher.
But the picture that drew my attention this time was quite a large portrait (which I think was by John Singer Sargent) of a man standing with his sword by his side. The gleaming steel of the sword's handle was really effective and realistic, so I approached the canvas to see how the effect had been achieved. Close up, the handle was merely some grey paint, topped with a splodge of white paint, and three thinner white stripes that looked as if they had been applied quite hastily.
And yet, stepping back again, the fabulous effect was restored.
The lesson for me (although I'm just on drawing at the moment) is to keep the "big picture" in mind and not get too caught up with reproducing every minute detail; a few strokes of a pencil or brush can be very effective in creating an illusion.

Assignment One: made objects

For this composition, I brought together some decorating equipment - a roller tray and a roller with fluffy surface; a scraper; a packet of wallpaper paste; paint-brush; sheet of sandpaper; wallpaper scissors.

Both the scissors and scraper are a bit rusty, so were not shiny, except for the handles of the scissors. The metal shaft of the paint-brush was chrome and therefore quite shiny.

I've stuck mainly to B and 4B pencils, with a bit of soft graphite pencils to get more definition here and there.

Assignment One: Natural Forms in colour

I have to admit I've struggled with this, both deciding what to use and then how to arrange the objects. I've got three teazles and a few shells, and I've arranged them on a piece of hessian.

For a start, how to depict hessian. I experimented with trying to draw the hessian thread by thread, but that was not only very slow, but also not very effective. So I ended up trying the frottage technique, holding a piece of hessian under the paper. The effect was moderately successful, especially once I'd drawn in the rough edge of the hessian, but it was hard to show the folds in the material.

The big conch shell is quite shiny and the light on it produced a nice curved stripe along the top - but I've not managed to reproduce that very well. I tried using charcoal and bringing out the shine by applying a rubber along it, but it's not very effective.

The clam shell also gave me quite a lot of trouble, but I've eventually managed to convey something of its shape after several false attempts.

I've added some colour to show the interesting colouring of the conch shells and the conical one.

I considered adding a thin wash of colour for the hessian (see bottom lefthand corner) but immediately realised it was going to make the paper curl, so I stopped and applied kitchen paper to try and mop it up.

Assignment 1: initial sketch

This was a first attempt at the 'natural forms' composition for the first assignment.

I've agonised about getting a decent composition, and I'm not entirely happy with this composition of shells and teazles on a sheet of hessian.

Getting the shiny surfaces of the big conch to show proved difficult, and I've not worked out yet how to express the surface of the hessian.

Anyway, this is the first go at it...(using pencil, some graphite pencil, and some charcoal)

Shell study

In preparation for my first assignment, I've acquired some shells for the natural forms composition.

This is just an initial sketch of one of the small shells I plan to use. It's got attractive brown swirls on rhe exterior, which I'm not sure come across in the drawing.

I lit the shell with an overhead lamp, hence the sharp shadow.

Vase of dahlias

We bought some white and yellow dahlias in the market and added an anemone from the garden, which I thought looked rather nice in a small vase.

It was a good opportunity to use some of the techniques learned so far, and also to try and capture the shape and structure of the dahlia blooms. It was actually quite difficult as the blooms are made up of many tightly-knit petals, each of which throws a shadow on its surrounding petals.

I also wanted to convey the way the water changed the shape and direction of the stems. I did the drawing outdoors in bright sunshine, so there were some strong shadows.

I decided to add some colour as an afterthought, which I think was a bit of a mistake because I'd already used a lot of pencil for shadow.

Two views of a log

In preparation for the first assignment, I went looking for some "natural forms" that would fit a composition, and discovered this log. It has some broken bark on it, and it was also small enough to fit into a rucksack.

I had to attempts at it, first just with pencil. But I felt it needed something more to bring out the various elements, so I just added a little bit of colour for the bark.

I then had another go using a mix of graphite pencil and then with charcoal which I applied a bit more freely to see if that improved things. On the whole, I think I prefer the more detailed first one, with the colour added.

Rusty breakwater in Deal, Kent

These rusty breakwaters in Deal are a big favourite with local artists, and I find their shape very appealing.
I decided to try and convey their substance in a drawing. I found quite difficult to distinguish between the rusty metal and the wooden parts of the posts. Maybe it would be better to use colour to help create a better impression of the materials.
Anyway, to make it clear what I was trying to achieve, I've added a photograph, which was taken later than the first part of the drawing, and so the light has changed.

Here's the drawing:

And here's the photograph:

Drawing with textures

I collected a small log with some broken bark, a pine cone, three poppy heads, and a shiny leaf.

I have to admit that I'm still struggling to convey different textures in a drawing. For instance the leaf was quite shiny, but I don't think this really comes over in the finished drawing.

I tried using a mixture of media, using a soft graphite pencil to create some of the texture of the bark. But I kept reverting to my sharp 2B pencil to get more definition around the poppy stems, which were very light-coloured and therefore stood out from the darker bark in the background.

Anyway, here goes...

Experimenting with texture

This has been, without doubt, the most difficult and frustrating exercise so far.

I've tried drawing folded fabric, bits of wood, a silk tie, some pottery, some wood bark and a few other bits and pieces. I even tried drawing the texture of a towel, and some suede material.

I also tried some frottage, using the seat of a cane chair.

I tried using pencil and charcoal, using the rubber to create light patches. However, as the pathetic picture below shows, most of the pics turned out really badly, and are just meaningless splodges.

I think I'm going to go back to the Bridgeman library to look at the way the masters do it. I might also try using some other materials, such as pastels or (when I buy one) a dip pen.

Anyway here's the mess....

Visit to Leighton House Museum

Just paid a visit to the former home of Frederic Leighton, a Victorian artist who built this house in Kensington and decorated it like an oriental building, using beautiful C17 Arabian tiles.

The house is as he left it and his study is packed with many of his drawings which I found really inspiring (and somewhat daunting), many of them on grey paper so that he could use white chalk to bring out highlights. I was struck by all of them, but really impressed by a simple study of some folded silk material. The execution of this drawing was fabulous, and is really one to try and emulate (!)

On show were also had a number of pre-Raphaelite paintings, including this huge one by Waterhouse called Mariamne, depicting King Herod condemning his wife to death:

Compositions of natural objects

I found this the most demanding exercise so far.

Getting the various natural objects (apple, vine tomatoes, banana, lemon, a sprig of ivy, a pine cone) to come to life was really hard for me.

I tried using just pencil and some graphite pencil to produce shadows and shading, but I found it very hard to differentiate between the various types of surface using just pencil. For instance, the tomatoes were very shiny and therefore had lots of highlights. I tried shading them in and then rubbing out little spots to make the reflections, but it's not really successful.

Euqally, the lumpy texture of the lemon was hard to portray. The smooth matt textures of the banana and apple were a little easier.

In one picture I tried using water colour pencils to differentiate the fruits, but not to any great effect.

I can see already I need to work much hard on reproducing natural shapes. By their very "nature" they are irregular, in contrast to made objects which tend to be more regular and have clear curves and straight lines.

Still life sketches of made objects

It took me a while to decide on what to draw - a bit fed up with the same old jugs and jars.

Finally went to the garage and gathered up some tools, and took them outside into bright sunlight where we got some very strong and distinct shadows. I used an HB pencil to get the basic shapes and then chose to use a pen. The idea was to improve my cross-hatching to represent shade and shadow.

I'm just wondering whether I should have used different media to bring out the different textures of wood and metal.

Shadows and reflected light - in charcoal

I took a white shiny jug and a glass vase and put them under a strong angled light.

The vase has a nice pattern and produced some very interesting shadow patterns, as well as distorting the shadow of the jug as it passed behind the vase.

However, I found this a very difficult exercise. Charcoal is pretty messy to work with anyway, and I kept accidentally smudging it. The putty rubber proved to be used in bringing out some of the shiny surfaces. I also attempted to convey the patterns of the glass (see top of vase) by drawing it black and then rubbing out to produce stripes, but I couldn't get enough precision using the rubber.

I'm not particularly happy with the resulting drawing, but I think I've learned a bit about applying charcoal (and the rubber!). I obviously have a long way to go before I can convey the impression of different materials such as glass.

Reflected light

I placed three objects by a strong light with the curtains closed so that I got very strong shadows.

I have to admit I found it quite hard to capture the image, and I'm afraid the strong shadows were in danger of looking like big untidy splodges.

Anyway, I'll probably give this another go with some other objects.

Tonal study

This involved drawing a collection of objects (soup ladle, apple, tennis ball and mug) with a strong light source to show shadows and shading.
It proved harder than expected to get to show the exact pattern of shadows - the shadows turned out to be a lot more complex that I had imagined. It was good to position the mug so that I got the shadow of the handle, though. Anyway, here's my first effort....

Supermarket group

With this exercise I tried to get as many different shapes together. Having learned from the previous exercise about the importance of getting the relative positions of objects correct, I was able to work on this with a bit more confidence this time.
I decided at the end to add a pen outline and then a bit of colour with crayons - not too sure about the results....(don't know how to rotate the picture)

Anyway, I dedided then to try again with another group, and to stick  to graphite pencil.

It's a similar grouping of objects, but with a bit more detail shown of the labelling. Again, the exercise showed me the value of trying to look without making assumptions about what you are seeing.

For instance, the shape of the coffee jar seemed slightly unnatural while I was drawing it, but I think that by just sticking closely to what I saw, it manages to look fairly close to the original...

Jugs and Jars exercise - this turned out to be a lot more challenging than the books and boxes exercise. I had two bottles, a jar and two jugs arranged together.
I started off quite confidently but soon found that the different elements didn't line up properly, so there was a lot of rubbing out and re-positioning to be done.
The main lesson from this, I feel, is to look not only at the individual objects but also their relative positions, and the spaces in between them. I also found that by starting off with light dotted lines using a B pencil, it was possible to get an overall outline of the group; then I began working on the more detailed elements, finally working with a softer pencil to do the final lines.
On the whole, this was a very worthwhile exercise, and I definitely found my confidence growing as I went along. However, I can still see that some of the shapes are not exactly right (eg the oval lid of a jar seen side-on), so there's plenty of room for improvement.

Last night I did the Boxes and Books exercise, arranging a number of books, including a large atlas, in a couple of different ways, and trying to capture the shapes and angles.
I was quite happy with the results, and plan to move on to Jugs and Jars today while I still have the wind in my sails....
I guess what I learned from the exercise is to look carefully at the relationships between different objects, and to draw what you actually see rather than what you think you see. 

First exercises

It's taken me a while to get started on the art course after the OCA sent me the course documents. I've enjoyed going out to buy materials(I love art shops), but I think I'm nervous about actually getting started on some real work.

Today I tried one of the early exercises which involved doodling using a variety of different pencils, crayons and pens.

This was surprisingly interesting.

As I expected, using softer graphite pencils (4B to 6B) provides the ability to do more atmospheric shading, but cross-hatching seemed fairly pointless.

Using softer carbon pencils also helped to create a 'rounded' effect, especially when holding the pencil flat rather than point down.

With a sharp pen, you get a clean effect, and cross-hatching can achieve a pleasant shading effect.

Charcoal is also great to use, and by using your fingers to smear it, you can get some lovely subtle shading effects.

With watercolour pencils, the effects were interesting, if a little unpredictable.

And with pastel crayons, I could get a similar range of effects as with a 6B pencil.

Returning to art after 40 years

I've just signed up for an art course with the Open College of the Arts, and my first goal is to complete the basic Drawing Skills module.

I've just retired from being a journalist and I want to return to my first love, which was art. As a boy, I filled dozens of sketchbooks wioth pictures mainly of horses. It was the closest I've ever had to a natural talent. I just hope that after so long, I will be able to rekindle both the passion for art, and the skill to produce some wirhtwhile pictures.