M6 Ch3 Beginning to explore your theme - Pen and ink drawing

A.6.3.1. Mark making with pens.  I decided to make do with the pens I had, at least to start with, to see how I got on.  I like the dark brown pens and have obviously used the permanent one a lot as it is running out.  The felt tip is rather thick but I do have a box of them, left over from teaching. I like the patterns that can be made from stippling.

 Cross hatching is more exciting than hatching.

 A reminder that cheap cartridge paper doesn't like water, it's gone all wavy.

 A.6.3.2. Drawing with pen.  I had a great time going round the village with my camera.  I had thought to take my sketch pad too but everytime I planned it the cold wind blew!  The weather has changed now so I still hope to have a go. I think it will be very different to drawing from a photo as there are no boundaries.  This kissing gate is my first attempt, one I was quite pleased with, especially when my husband recognised where it is.

 I think ivy will be a recurring theme in my final work, I like the shape of the leaves and the way it winds round everything.  I was pleased with the drawing but then mucked up the hatching.

This photo was taken late in the afternoon and showing long shadows on the grass was quite a challenge.

I love the flint in the walls -takes me back to my childhood in Sussex.  Using a colour wash to take off the whiteness definitely improved the look of the wall section.

 I like the top right corner of this picture but had difficulty showing the way the water was flowing, from right to left with a swoosh round to the bottom left.

 Drawing the blackthorn was more difficult than I expected but so pretty.  Until I saw the photo I hadn't realised how many and how big the stamens were.  I hadn't planned to add the colour wash but felt the flowers disappeared in the background.  I was worried about adding wet as I had used a non-permanent pen so added the green very carefully avoiding the flowers and am pleased with the result, including the way the background has smudged.

M6 Ch2 Experimenting with free standing books.

M6 Ch1 Choosing a Theme.  As you can see, this photo isn't ch 2 at all but my initial thoughts for my chosen theme, 'Charminster Footpaths'.

A.6.2.1/2 I put these two activities together as I investigated websites and tried some ideas I saw there as well as ones suggested by Viv.  The first 2 photos are zigzag books with 'signatures'.  The first is 'dos-a-dos' and the second straightforward.  I liked the idea of 'signatures'.

Here are a couple of 'flag books', one simple, one a little more complicated.  I wasn't particularly struck with this idea.

 Here are some ideas from ones seen on websites.  The first and third were on 'Images,' and the second (middle one) an idea by Sue Doggett.

 And here are a couple of children's zigzag books in my possession. The little house is remarkably robust being bought 30 years ago for my 2 year old, it has been in the hands of  numerous school children, not to mention grandchildren.  The zigzag book with flaps is as old but not very popular.

I did like the work of Sarah Edmonds who has made a wonderful selection of lovely books.  Ideas - Different shapes and sizes, papercuts and patterns, lots of little booklets within stiff covers with a wide spine.

Australian Marianne Little also had a good selection, making zigzags into stars or other folds, cut zigzag structures like houses or dolls.

Kelmscott Manor 'how to' website suggested tying the finished book together.

'Images' showed boxes to keep the finished book in, eg. a coffin for a coffin shaped book.

M5 Ch10 Degas and Pastels

A5.10.1. Mark making with pastels. I already had oil pastels so treated myself to some soft pastels.  There was a great difference in the cost of the different makes so I decided to try different ones to discover why.  Although called soft pastels, they seemed to behave more like Viv's description of hard pastels.  I did like the Sennelier ones (despite getting some on the carpet which I have been unable to remove)  Different colours had a different consistency so needed treating differently, a bit like children.  The colours were beautiful.

I started with my familiar oil pastels...

...moved onto the Daler- Rowney...

and then the Sennelier.

I then found some Faber-Castell ones in a monochrome box I have and tried those.

I tried different papers too - cartridge, water colour, tissue, paper napkin, brown paper but my favourite was black because it made the colours sing and glow.

A5.10.2. Using stencils.  I just used Sonnelier pastels and fingers for the rest of the activities as they were my favourites.  I was pleased with the way the leaf pattern came out and like the brown squares.

 I found the torn paper activity wonderfully therapeutic!

A5.10.3 Copying fragments of Degas paintings was more of a challenge than I expected it to be but I think I improved a bit as I tried more and learnt more about the pastels.

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To finish, here is a photo of all my module 5 work in their folders.  I found I could use some of the experimental folders done in Ch1 and made more for other chapters, especially 'Bodies and Movement' when I made some larger pictures.

It has been another enjoyable module, time consuming and definitely challenging at times - all that drawing- but I also feel I have learnt a lot and become more confident.

M5 Ch9 Crowds 2

A5.9.1.  Gallery.  Here's a collection of pictures and photos of mine to show different kinds of crowds and different occasions.  It took me ages to do, it's easy when the photos are in the same folder but I wanted to include photos from everywhere.

A5.9.2.  Using stencils and templates.  I decided to go for a Medieval theme after a visit to Berlin and seeing the proverb painting by Pieter Bruegel.  I have always liked his paintings as there is so much going on.  I chose to use the same colours as in the painting.  I picked out 5 of the characters to draw.  Taking them out of context changed what they appeared to be doing as did putting them in different groupings.  That I found really interesting.

 Using the template to cut out figures.  I do like my brown paper bags and I think they work for this.

 Drawing round the template with a wax crayon - one left alone and the other painted with water colour and a pencil crayon with watercolour pencil wash.

 Template and acrylic paint sponged.

I didn't have any printing ink or acrylic paint so decided to buy one tube of each to try.  My local shop only had water based printing ink so I bought a tube of that and a tube of oil paint.  The lady in the shop suggested a tube of (?) to make it better for printing but I declined when I saw the price as I'm only experimenting.  I was glad I did.  This first picture was made using the ink and the stencils which were then rubbed on the paper to make the inverse image.

 A5.9.3.  Monoprinting
Method 1. I tried various media for this but found quick drying ones too quick however small an area I did as the paint had to be thinly spread.  I liked fabric paints best so this is what I have used here.  (The special lightener made the paint to runny, hence the chap with fat legs!)
I then tried my new ink and oil paint.

 Method 2.  Using oil. The top 2 drawings actually worked quite well although they don't show up here. The bottom 2 are oil rubbings after using the template.

 On the computer the ink looks better but certainly doesn't in reality.  This is a mixture of method 2 and rubbings taken afterwards.

 Method 3. I liked this one although again the ink didn't work as well as the oil.  Again a mixture of method 3 and rubbings.  The downside of oil could be the very long drying time.

The laminate when I had finished.

A mixture of templates and stencils - and a rubbing.  Looking at the picture on the computer i think the blue dots should be smaller as they dominate too much so may try again.

M5 Ch8 Crowds

M5 Ch7 A3 I tried more negative figures using different sized templates.  Not sure the contrast in colour is strong enough but there are some interesting shapes.  From a distance the lines almost looked like writing and that gave me another idea but for another day.

A5.8.1 l.S.Lowry.  I found this quite a hard exercise but afterwards realised I needn't have painted the outlines first which is what I found tricky, trying to make the lines thin enough.
 

A5.8.2.  Keith Haring.  I enjoyed drawing these little men and playing with the templates.

I mostly used dye-based paints and loved the way the black outline made them stand out and got rid of all the little wobbles in the painting.  I like the way, too, that the figures can be used to tell a story

Painting the negative shapes was surprisingly difficult.  It would have been easier to paint the background first and then added cut shapes on top.  This might not have made such interesting shapes though.

 I did use cut out figures to stick on the black paper.