Still Life

This is a 40 minute still life study drawn using a white pencil on black paper. I chose to draw using white pencil as I wanted to practise drawing using reverse values. I chose an small selection of differently shaped round objects, and arranged them so none of them were "kissing". The objects I chose allowed me to practise rendering light on rounded things, I think I successfully managed to do this as my illustration has a three-dimensional quality to it as a result of the shading. I feel that this was most successful with the handle of the mug inside the bowl and the shadow it casts.

I found it challenging to produce a range of values using a white pencil as it's lead was quite hard. I found that the most effective way of creating lighter tones was to shade using layers of pencil. I could have used cross-hatching to do this more effectively but I wanted to keep my lines all following the same/a similar direction to give the image a more fluid feel as a whole.

Landscape

This is a 15 minute landscape study of the view from my front window, drawn using charcoal. My charcoal work isn't as effective as my pencil studies; I find that it is too soft, which makes it hard to maintain lighter values in the image as they get ruined by the charcoal smudging itself across the page. This makes the image flat and dull. I think the most effective part of the image is the right side where the charcoal hasn't been smudged and the detail of the tree and the surrounding bushes are more contrasty.

Life Drawing

This is a 15 minute study of a male torso drawn using a 3B pencil, paying close attention to details such as bone structure. I chose a vantage point where I could clearly see the whole of his chest without being sat directly in front of him, as I wanted to clearly be able to see the ribcage but sitting directly in front would make the drawing too two-dimensional. I used tonal values to give the form a more three-dimensional feel, however it still looks flat against the white background. Shading the background instead of leaving it white would stop it looking as flat, but I think that, in this instance, it isn't too much of an issue as there is nothing to distract from the detail inside the outline of the torso which is the main focal point. 

Had this been a longer study than 15 minutes, I could have used a different shading approach to give the illustration a more realistic feel. I chose to shade very loosely instead to ensure the whole area was filled. I think this method also helps to draw attention to the skeletal structure under the skin as the low number of values exaggerates these slightly, making it seem more contrasty than highly realistic shading with more values would do.

Life Drawing

This is a 10 minute life drawing study of the human body in a tense position, drawn using a 2B pencil. I expressed the tension shown by the body through the heavy lines at the top of his back showing where his muscles are tensed tightly together. I also used hatching to show where shadows were being cast on his body, making it more 3-dimensional.

The sketch is unsuccessful in the sense that I don't think it is proportionally accurate. I think I should have drawn his legs longer; the whole body is as tall as six and a half of his head measurement. From his neck to his buttocks, there are 3 heads. From there to his feet, there are only 2 and a half heads. As the average person is seven and a half heads tall, I think his legs are too short. His back looks very elongated, however this might be exaggerated by the shortness of his legs. Improper proportion could have been prevented by taking the time to measure and roughly plot out the bodies proportions on the page before starting to draw and I should pay more attention to doing this in future.

Life Drawing

This is a 15 minute Life Drawing study using a 3B pencil. I worked quickly to produce the basic form of the model that was still proportionally accurate. Whilst I feel I was successful in doing this, I could have paid more attention to areas such as the front arm to more clearly express its muscle and bone structure as the lines are very straight and not completely true to real life.

I used a hatching method of shading to quickly express the areas of the body which were in shadow, this contrast successfully prevents the sketch from looking flat and gives it a more realistic, 3-dimensional quality to the image. Whilst this was a study of the entire figure, I think I could improve in future by paying closer attention to detail around the head as it doesn't seem to fit right with the rest of the figure.

Reflective Surfaces

This is a study of reflective surfaces drawn in a 45 minute period after 15 minutes of planning. Whilst the image does show reflection of the room in the tall vase, and the reflection of light on the object in front of it, I think it could have been shown more effectively by using stronger highlights that contrast with the darker values. The clear glass jars containing water aren't clearly rendered as glass as I found dealing with the refraction of light and the objects in the water difficult to deal with. As a result, the front jar lacks contrast and could be improved by paying more attention to smaller details around this area. 


The area behind the objects is very heavily shaded, I feel that this draws attention away from the main subjects of the image as they blend in with it too much. As this image was drawn using a 5B pencil, I think it might have been too soft for this type of study; the pencil smudged too easily under my hand whilst working on other areas of the image, making it hard to maintain lighter values on the page, and also creating areas in other places which were too dark. A slightly harder pencil such as a 2B might have been better to use.

Still Life

This is a 30 minute, plus 5 minute planning, still life study of a vase of flowers drawn with a 4B pencil. I positioned the study off-centre on the page as this created a more interesting composition. I chose a vantage point where the flower at the front of the vase was clearly visible, and where I wasn't directly sat in front of one edge of the table, as this made for a more interesting composition that shows some depth. A sense of depth is also created by the shading in the area behind the flowers. I used a range of values to show the areas of light and shadow to express the form of the objects and add to the sense of depth.                 

As time was restrictive when drawing this piece, the flowers in the vase are not accurately drawn, however I feel that their basic form and placement are still successfully and clearly portrayed by the quickly drawn, simple lines. I still need to focus on perspective when drawing pieces like this in future as I am not happy with the top of the table; I think that the far right corner of the table is too high behind the vase and needs to be lowered. This would also push the back edge of the table into a nicer angle.

Light and Shadow

These are a series of pencil studies, ranging from 10 minutes to 40 minutes, of a stool covered with a piece of material. For each one, I tried to pick an interesting vantage point and work quickly to show as much detail as possible.  I think my quicker studies were more successful; I drew the 40 minute study to a larger scale due the less restricting time limit but this turned out to be unsuccessful as it meant the whole image would not fit on the page, for this reason, the composition of my quicker studies turned out to be more interesting.

For each study, I successfully used a range of values to show light and depth, this is most successful in the 40 minute study as the greater time allowance meant I had longer to express the value range and show more detail in the folds of the material.

Composition

This is a study looking at interesting compositions for an interior landscape. This was intended to be a quick speed-drawing exercise, however I think I spent too much time on the two panels on the left of the page concentrating on making sure I had a range of values to give the panels more depth. 

I spent less time on the panels on the right of the page, even though they were drawn quickly, both of these panels use perspective to create an interesting composition as well as bring depth to the image. In future for exercises similar to this, I think I should spend less time being finicky and work at a quicker pace to get more thumbnails drawn in the same space of time.

Perspective

This is a two hour pencil study looking at perspective on a building. I chose a vantage point that showed the corner of a building, and also another building in the background, which allowed me to use two-point perspective to show depth. 

One of the flaws with this sketch, is that the scale I drew the buildings to meant that my vanishing point was outside of the page. Whilst I tried to make sure my lines were accurate, this was hard with no definitive marks of where the vanishing points were, so I also used the building in the background to work out roughly what angle my lines needed to be at.

Although this drawing was meant to show perspective, I also tried to demonstrate light and shade. Whilst I am pleased with the results, I don't feel I managed to accurately portray it as the sun kept going behind clouds. This meant the areas of shadow and light kept changing sporadically.

Basic Marks

These are a collection of images for practising drawing basic marks and lighting and shade in pencil. My basic mark page shows my attempts at drawing using different angled lines in squares. I found this particularly challenging with diagonal lines as I found it hard to judge where each line would need to start and finish to keep the square shape.

My lighting and shade practise was more successful and I managed to show a range of values through varying the pressure on the pencil and apply these values to a spherical shape in a realistic way. 

This is a quick pencil sketch to practise drawing objects in proportion relative to each other. This was successful as I managed to demonstrate the scale of the box in relation to the table whilst keeping it in perspective. I also tried to show the shadow cast by the object; I feel this would have been more successful had I shaded this to show it was supposed to be a shadow cast by the object.

Whilst my object is proportionally correct, I ended up drawing the table at an angle on the paper and this is made more obvious by the scan also being at a slight angle. In future I need to pay more attention to the angle of my lines that are meant to be at a 90 degree angle in relation to the edge of the paper for better judgement.