mapping

We walked around Cheltenham on a journey , with a goal for our exercise -  I left the uni and set off, the  sun was setting and casting a brilliant light across the buildings. i chose light as my theme. The sun set quickly, the light changed, as i walked into town, bright neon signs and christmas lights cut through the dark. i drew the objects that my attention was drawn to.

I worked across my sketchbook, merging the different scenes together. I think the method of ‘collaging’ the scenes worked well as its a continuous time line of my journey.

below, the large sheets drawn from my sketchbook.

 A sheet to look at where the shadow and light will fall,

Details from the large showing how the knitted scenes turn into a surreal landscape.

From this project I learned that it’s easier to collect information if you know what you’re looking for, you’re more selective with what you draw.

The main point i got also, was to produce lots of thumbnails and look at other possibilities rather than just drawing straight off. I’m currently thumb nailing where the ink will go, working from my observational in my sketchbook.

I’ve looked at some figurative references to add people in, as I didn’t draw them in on location. There’s good references of people from behind and with heavy coats on, which i’ll integrate in - thumb nailing compositions before. 

Other mapping 

instow, the tarka train. i was able to gain the viewpoint from a bridge.
i drew these over the easter holidays. I am trying to work from sketches and use them as information to produce larger paintings. 

looking over the sea to the other town.

there was masses of people who each moved too quickly to draw.

Colour in form

We choose our colours from the observations last week and applied them to other objects. We then used the complementary colure to abstract it and make it more bright like children's books.

items from around the studio

I used the ink dropper tool to choose colours from these 3 pictures.

 The from the ink drop tool... the colour swatch panel opened up. I tried to keep the tone the same but change the hue. I did attempt to use the 'replace colour' in Photoshop, but it turned bland ad the colours were not complementary. I also tried the 'Hue/saturation' tool but it changed all the colours to disgusting green or vivid purple... instead of just the opposite colours.

These colours are incredibly bright, but i did choose to colour the bright tin toys from last week. 

Colour

This session we looked at colour. I found watercolours okay to use but produced muddy colours if over mixed or contaminated.  I used gouache instead to thicken the opacity and get bolder colours.  

 Textiles were easier to describe with colouring pencils to produce the layers and replicate threads.

 I particularly liked the tin cars because of their bold colours - i'll try to produce some stencil prints from these for experimenting.

I especially like the colours used here, I would like to produce a print for the cafe I work in as they're looking for work to put up...need to take this opportunity!! 

orange is too muddy....the simple shapes let the colour sing out. 

working from photos is bad, the light is different and can't focus on the contrast properly... 

Produce prints from these!!!

3D letters

Kats bag came in very handy, with the letters being warped in the folds.

 Here I used some big letterpress cutouts.

Pittville pumproom

It was a glorious day and warmth from the sun encouraged us out to Pittville pump rooms. The task was to draw sketches of the building, and make visual notes in order to recreate the whole building when we returned to the studio. The brightness of the sun casted a strong shadow, making definition easier. 

 I first drew a detailed drawing, but realised that the symmetry of the building was out... I drew a second geometric sketch which made it easier to see how many pillars and windows there where, and how simple the shape of the building actually was.

 These two are from the back of the building, a sweeping curve juts out and made keeping perspective difficult.

The final product of the sketches. The first two really helped as they were from the front. The smaller sketches helped me with the details on the facade and statues. This is about A2 in size, I used ink wash and am very pleased with it! 

From this drawing, I felt that the dramatic pillars would be good exaggerated, and added with a high angle, would make a good murder mystery poster of something similar. The first image, with the high angle, I realised wasn't 'included' enough as a viewer...what's going on? So I changed the second to a low angle, which I developed into the below images.  

Here I feel more involved in the dramatic event of a murder happening on the grounds of the pump room. I feel like the pillars represent teeth or horror and a person being spat out of the building.

Rosemoor gardens

I travelled to Rosemoor gardens in Great Torrington and did some quick sketches of people weaving and admiring the stalls. The old men were good to draw as they couldn't move, even if they found out you were drawing them.

Today we looked at continuing perspectives onto boxes, which will develop into building scenes for our backgrounds.

I tried using 2 point perspective to keep things somewhat believable but it was still a struggle with the different angles.