Culture meets Nature: Drawing

To continue on our theme of 'when culture meets nature' we each chose two words out of a hat, one was a natural thing, and one cultural. My two words were 'mountain' and 'shoes'. I started off by doing some observational sketches of shoes, both mine and other peoples.

I then sketched a mountain the best I could from memory (unfortunately I couldn't find a mountain in Wolverhampton) 

I then tried to combine the two, by making a 'mountain of shoes' starting with a pile of shoes, turning into a mountain further up

 Some close-ups of the drawing:

I then tried to combine them in a different way, by making the mountain into a shoe. I did this by putting laces up the side of the mountain, and trying to make it shoe shaped, while keeping the form of the mountain. I then cut away the excess paper to better show the shape.

Design visualisation: observational drawing and modelling.

I decided to use a glove as the base for my observational drawing, to link with my theme of trace elements. A glove is often something people lose without noticing, if it falls out of a pocket, and it is a trace of the person who has been there.

I started off by using a graphite stick and pencil to do some quick sketches of the glove, in various different sizes and positions. I then used ink and collage to work into my drawing, to highlight interesting patterns and shapes.

I also did some separate quick drawings, to try to capture some of the different tones and shadows in the glove. 

After this, I started picking out some of the interesting patterns and shapes to make in wire. I found it difficult to bend very tight angles in the wire so some parts were more curved than I hoped they would be.

I then started to use black thread with the wire to create different thicknesses of lines, and some sharper angles. Some of the wire bits didn't look at all like a glove, but I found this was a good way to generate ideas from everyday objects, that could be used for jewellery or a printed pattern.

  After this, I started using collage, string, masking tape, sewing, and photocopies of the glove to create small object, taking ideas from my first drawing.

Illustration: Observational bird drawings

 In our first day of illustration, we were doing observational drawings of stuffed birds.

 The first drawing we did was with our non-drawing hand, so for me my left hand. This was to create a looser drawing, and to capture the basic shape and essence of the bird. We then did another drawing of the same bird, on top of the previous drawing. I like this because of all the overlapping shapes and messy lines.

 This owl was drawn without looking at the paper, just looking at the owl. At one point. my graphite stick fell off the edge of the paper. The basic shapes are all there, but aren't all in the right place.























This toucan is drawn using the same method, but with a felt tip pen. I like the shape of his beak and his feet. It looks like a toucan even though his head isn't complete.

This is my favourite of my bird sketches, it was done mainly looking at the bird, and only glancing at the page. I like it because it is very simple but also very accurate to the real bird.

Indian Ink

 The first drawings are done in graphite stick, to try to be freer and more sketchy. We then moved on to indian ink, using strips of card to draw with, so smaller details were done with the very edge of the card, and shading and larger parts with the flat part. I was quite pleased with my shading by the end. I like the semi-transparent nature of the ink because you can go over it to get darker tones and shadows but it also fades into light so there's a good range of tones from just one type of ink.

Line Drawing

This is my line drawing of a coffee percolator which I did in pencil, without using shading. I found it hard to get the lines straight and make it look 3D. I  also struggled getting the top and the bottom curves equal. I then chose to use a 9B graphite stick to get a more definite line. I drew the ellipses first, to get them lined up, and then drew my next line drawing. I found that this was more successful because the proportions were right and because the lines were darker I think it communicated the shape and form better.

   We also tried drawing objects with as few marks as possible (each time the pencil lifted off the paper counted as a mark). I drew a phone using nine marks. I found this very interesting because it made me really think about which lines were important, and what could be left out without affecting the communication of the object to the viewer. I quite enjoyed the challenge of drawing in such a stripped-back and basic style.