Palimpsest Pt2 - Spitalfields Market

In this task, we had to walk around the market and choose one stall holder of our interest to focus on.

I made a series of quick drawings of the stall holder to capture his movements then went on to changing my tools around to add colour and layers.

There were two men at this stall and I found their relationship very interesting. Even though I stood there drawing for an hour, not once did they speak to each other or make any form of contact. The man with the hood sat with his dog on his phone, while the man I focused on (with the glasses) stood and sat around drinking his coffee.

I started to draw the interactions between the stall holder and his customers, objects and the environment focusing on certain aspects of the scene, looking in to pattern and using colour where necessary.

I loved this task. At first glimpse, the brief seemed really long and frankly, a little boring but I really enjoyed capturing the movements of people and having to make decisions if they changed their position. I'm really happy with these drawings and would love to try a task like this again in my own time.

Palimpsest Pt1 - Museum of London

The next part of this project focused on the history of Spitalfields market in different times/eras. I made a series of drawings at the Museum of London using mostly pencil and coloured pencils and focused mostly on the different styles of drawing.

I enjoyed this task because I've always loved drawing observationally, especially from objects in a museum. I liked challenging myself to make quicker sketchier drawings to capture the idea of the object as oppose to make perfect finished drawings. I also enjoyed working with colour and feel I should do this more often.

REPORTAGE

For this new project, we started off with having to choose 3 illustrators we liked the work of and talking about why we liked their work. I chose Paul Hogarth, Lucinda Rogers & George Grosz.

PART 1:

PAUL HOGARTH

These are more conventional pieces. Hogarth has used a range of materials to capture the detail of his observations in the first work. His work is very detailed in certain areas and minimal in others which gives it a sense of narrative.

LUCINDA ROGERS

I love the use of thin and thick lines in Rogers' work. It creates a deeper sense of perspective. Everything looks very free-hand and effortless almost as if she wasn't fussed about creating a 'pretty' final image but just recording everything she could see.

GEORGE GROSZ

What I love about Grosz' work is that he doesn't draw from one perspective but takes different elements of what he sees to create one big illustration. I think its interesting that his work gives us a sense of time and movement as oppose to the conventional flat piece that looks like its been drawn from a photograph.

PART 2:

The second part of the task was to sit in an outdoor environment where we felt mostly at home and create a series of illustrations using different media and methods.

I decided to sit in the outdoor part of Starbucks in Camden as its a place I've been going to since I was a teenager and has a nice canal view with the Dingwalls building.

I started off with a fine liner and felt tip drawing using different line weights.

I then decided to experiment with watercolour to have less control of my drawing. I found this really frustrating and didn't enjoy painting it or the outcome.

It got really cold outside so I decided to sit inside a random cafe in my local area and do a quick drawing in there using a felt tip pen. 

I decided to give the watercolours another go only this time I used fine liner as well. I loved the outcome of this. I left the left side of the drawing blank to bring out the perspective and added minimal detail.

The Parallel Museum Pt3 - Homework Task

SCULPTURE

My sculpture was inspired by the Africa section of the British Museum. I particularly liked the masks and face sculptures.

I'm not usually very good at 3D design and have little experience in it. However, I really enjoyed putting it all together and trying to create texture by ripping pieces of card and sticking them to the surface.

This isn't something I'm particularly proud of and I do think it can be improved with paint or drawing but I wanted to leave the colour and texture on there as I think it works better with the African theme.

The Parallel Museum Pt2 - V&A Museum

For the second part of this project we went to the V&A museum. The task was to fill a page in our sketchbooks for these categories: legs, arms, heads, surfaces, patterns, shadows and columns.

I enjoyed this task a lot even though I couldn't finish all of my drawings on that day. Again, I'm still in the process of learning how to draw faster without being too precious about it.

The next task was to make 6 blind drawings.

Drawings with no outlines, focusing only on areas of colour or tone.

Drawing from memory.

Drawing with a ruler.

Reproducing an objects texture / surface pattern.

  REFLECTING:

I found todays task really eye-opening. I focused on things I'd usually walk past, found different ways to represent ideas (drawings the legs & arms of a chair as oppose to a person) and experimented with different drawing methods.

The drawing in tone only task was particularly challenging as it was so tempting to draw lines. I hated each drawing at the beginning but love them now as it allowed me to expand beyond my usual skills.

HOMEWORK:

Using the drawings from the museums as inspiration, I drew a room in an imagined museum from a parallel universe or new dimension. I really, really enjoyed this homework task. I usually draw from observation and tend to draw people so it was challenging at the beginning. I started off with drawing rough ideas of whatever popped in to my head in my sketchbook and spent some time looking through my museum drawings to gain inspiration.

I usually stick to flat drawings using only one or two mediums so I really wanted to experiment with minimal black fine liner drawing and use collage and colour as well. I kept the base/background quite  plain using only two colours and got in to more detail as the objects came closer to give the illusion of perspective in a room.

I then re-interpreted this drawing in to something more minimal and a little sinister for my lino prints. I knew I wanted to use lino for this because I love the free hand scratchy look that you get with lino prints. I experimented with different coloured block inks and printing on to different colours & materials to see what kind of rooms I could come up with.

I found the Buddhist/Hindu section of the V&A intriguing and created different fine liner drawings from objects I photographed at the museum. I used the museum objects as inspiration, adding my own style and details. I also made another series of lino prints collaging together some of my drawings from the museum:

I definitely wasn't happy with the lino outcome as it lost a lot of its detail and quality. I think it could be interesting to see how I could improve these by maybe drawing on top of them or collaging them as theres definitely something missing.

The Parallel Museum Pt1 - British Museum

This project was about observation, memory and imagination. The task was to produce a series of drawings some by memory, some observationally and in different styles using different media.

For the first task, I spent some time looking around the museum then left and tried to draw as much as I can from my memory. I'm used to drawing quite realistically and usually put 80% of my focus on to the object I'm studying observationally. To draw purely from memory, was extremely challenging but it was also fun going back in to the museum and comparing my drawings to the actual objects.

The next task was to draw at least 6 things in the museum from observation and to draw one room. Here I tried to experiment with coloured pencils and attempted to draw some really small sculptures that I wouldn't usually notice in the museum.

I definitely prefer the first task and its outcomes. I feel that the drawings I've come up with are unique as they're from my memory.

The next task was a homework task. I created 4 imagined sculptures inspired by the British Museum. The sculptures had to have a title, a description and had to be from an alternative past or a parallel universe. I found this task quite challenging at the beginning because I wasn't sure about how I'd write explanations about my drawings but I really enjoyed creating them.