Traditional Drawing - Week 24

Week 24 - Composition and Compositional Principles (Part 2): Landscape

·         For this week, I had to produce a compositionally pleasing landscape based off a location in a city.

·         Landscapes are a subject matter covered briefly at the end of last term with the use of perspective grids and lines.

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Reference:

·         I chose Byron square in Worcester, which is a new development with some interesting square shaped designs for balconies and shop fronts.

·         I chose this square because I thought it might be quite east to construct and to see the perspective lines utilised with, since there are plenty of straight architectural lines. This would also help me measure out the gaps easily.

Google Maps Reference

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Progress Drawing:

·         At this point, a general shape and value has been put over areas of the drawing to create a form. The reference did not have much contrast other than in the square sections of the building so shading overall is quite simple.

·         The number of lines leading to the vanishing points is interesting and helps build the composition through direction. It also helps break up the flat planes of the image like the floor.

·         The contrast at this point overall is very low, and the image despite having great linear composition features appears very flat.

Mid progress sketch

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Final Drawing:

·         I overall added more contrast in the shadow areas of the piece – and used the same technique from earlier this term where I used a water brush pen to smooth the graphite out over larger areas in a more controlled fashion than smudging. This worked well also to remove shine I was getting from the graphite on the page, so also helped in presentation.

·         I am still not completely happy with this piece – I have struggled with this landscape more than I expected too, I think mostly because I cannot find a way to put life into the scene without feeling like I am losing control over my pencil marks, since the buildings are precise angles and straight lines. I am struggling to find the midground between gestural and accurate with this subject matter.

·         If I were to do this again, I would have found an angle or subject matter with a more obvious light direction. Now, I am struggling to find contrast because my reference does not have much contrast either, so I think a better reference would go a long way.

Final Drawing

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Final Conclusions:

·         I think this piece is ok. It is not my favourite, but it highlights how far I have come in other aspects such as still life and portrait I believe since I can see my skill better in those pieces.

·         I am still very reluctant to use colour on pieces, however maybe here colour would have improved my piece by adding contrast to the colour blocking in the buildings. The only other colour media I have is alcohol markers here with me in uni – and those are a lot more permanent and fixed than pencil, so I will look at finding my watercolour pencils at home to hopefully make used of both my water brush pen method and to avoid the sensory issues I had last week.