This week, I set up a still life set with a skull model, 2 books and a mug with some spoons in and a reel of garden twine. I changed the position of the elements between each image, as I wanted to learn more the skills of just observing what is in front of me instead of building up muscle memory of drawing the same thing. This will likely change next week, but as an exercise getting back into drawing again this proved quite effective.
Task 1:
For this task, I outlined some basic rectangular borders to confine the drawing to and assigned 5-6 minutes per drawing. To make sure I understood where all the elements would fit, I did a quick sketch on the right of the first two attempts to rough out the composition. This helped, however with the context of a third attempt where I didn't use up time doing this the final result seemed more rounded and complete, with even levels of detail throughout.
I believe if I would do these again, I would more strongly focus on where I placed detail as I naturally gravitated to adding many lines on the face of the skull, since that was most interesting and recognisable to me. I did however not add shading detail within this time span, it was exclusively line drawing which is effective at showing form and didn't take up valuable time.
Task 2:
For this task I noticed myself loosening up my graphite movements as the practice continued, and was genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed the results of my left hand as I was forced to not look at detail due to lack of control and to make larger sweeping motions which was greater exaggerated by the graphite stick medium.
- My first attempt looked very tight and neat, and while it did get the composition in front of me onto paper it didn't have any interest.
- My second attempt I attempted to remedy this, however you can still tell where I haven't completely committed to this where I still had very regimented lines that rather crudely defined shapes, like on the mug, where the top rim of the mug is very heavily weighted so the entire mug feels very flat and just cylindrical.
- Arguably my left hand attempt also embodies this, where for instance the top of the mug is a very dark line and doesn't accurately show the weight that line should have, which should be very light.
- I did really enjoy seeing the shading on the skull in all three progress however, as it went from very regimented lines to very expressive shading that still conveyed the same form with more interest. I would have however added some shading to the teeth, as I completely blanked when drawing and didn't realise until afterwards that the skull was missing teeth.
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Drawing 1 - 20 minutes
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Drawing 2 - 20 minutes
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| Drawing 3 - Left hand - 20 minutes |
Task 3:
These tasks had a very different effect on my confidence, I noticed. I found that I came from my left hand practice, into my first blind contour drawing and thinking the result was "ok" for not being able to see the paper, and then as the practice continued I found my results get worse. In the end I saw this exercise as very light hearted and found it interesting how my brain seemed to compute the same things with similar shapes every time, such as the eye sockets of the skull and the shape of the mug in all 3 was very similar even if in very difference places.
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Blind Contour Drawing - 5 minutes
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2 More Blind Contour Drawings - 5 minutes each
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I did also think my final skull looked a lot like the crystal skull aliens from that one Indiana Jones film we don't talk about, which is interesting, and all three had some form of resemblance to Sid the sloth from ice age(?)
Task 4:
This final task was my favourite, as it allowed me to take my time and enjoy what I was drawing. There are a few issues with this drawing, including perspective inconsistencies such as with the top half of the skull with the jaw, however with practice I believe I will be able to improve on this more. I am happy with the blending quality I achieved with my blending stump which helped smooth out and fill areas more evenly with pigment, without completely losing the pencil quality in my original drawing. I fell into the same issue as I have had throughout of focussing on the skull in the centre, although the composition is focussed on this element in the centre so it is not as harsh. For the first time I also added contextual perspective with the wall and blanket in the background of the drawing, which I believe makes the image come together better as a whole compared to the other pieces I have drawn this week.
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| Final Drawing - 1 Hour |
Final Conclusions:
Overall, I am quite happy with my progress this exercise. I believe I should now give a greater focus on perspective, and I should use greater grades of pencil for creating greater depth of line in my pieces in the future.
UPDATE:
After receiving crit on my final drawing for using too much tone, I did a trace of my original drawing and focussed on just using line weight to show form. I definitely was not as comfortable with this process as just using tone, however I think the final result is better for showing line weight than my previous attempts.
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| Fixed final image after critique |
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