Hatching is not my favourite thing. My mind is drawn to organic lines. Squiggles, lazy loops, and such. I like soft gradients, and smudged lines. Smudging didn’t seem the point of this exercise.
The exercise asks that I do a number of studies. It wasn’t entirely clear if I was to study one object or many, so I tried to do both. It feels like an exercise that might be interesting in ink, but we are asked to use pencils of various softness. If I have more time, I’ll come back and redo the goblet (final study) in ink.
From my Unit 1 Assignment feedback, I was trying to keep the quality of the light in mind as I worked on this. I let myself stop and restart a couple times, focusing on the process rather than on producing “finish” in my drawings. I also tried to experiment a bit more.
Missing the Point
I went hunting interesting forms, rather than natural objects. I started with a shell, but then moved on to various man made items that caught my attention.
There is an observation that could be made here, about finding the natural in the middle of a city. But suffice to say I’ll leave it as: be more careful in my reading, and spend more time selecting items.
Starting Stopping
I began on kraft paper and regretted my decision pretty quickly. I was going to use chalk and charcoal. As you can see, I didn’t get far, particularly as I re-read the brief and decided this didn’t meet the ask. I liked the scale I was working at, but knew I wouldn’t have time to complete the exercise at this size. I want to return to this size, and maybe redo the goblet (final study).
Restarting
I restarted with palette knives. honestly, I didn’t put much thought here, and the knife was just the first thing to catch my attention. they served as effective warm-ups, and you can see in their progression a loosening in my marks. In the last one, I moved to a fairly big graphite stick (5mm, 6b) instead of a pencil. I like the chunky marks it gives me.
I didn’t do a good job of planning these, as you can see in the size and shape of the blades. I need to pay more attention. The final one is more proportionate than the others, which is good as I slowed myself down to actually pay attention to the transition between handle and blade.
Rendering the flat metal surface was frustrating. I really wanted to go to gradient here, and smudge it in.
Restarting
Earlier during the pandemic, I was picking up art/creations from various artists as a way to help. I picked up a vase like ceramic vessel in the shape of a little demon. I think it is a demon. I’m unsure if it is a vase. It is occasionally used as a pencil holder. It has a really interesting texture which I knew I wouldn’t be able to replicate with hatching. Perfect candidate for experimenting.
I re-read the brief, and at the end it mentions “continuous line, broken line”. I began this drawing by drawing a single continuous line through the whole figure, and using that line to squiggle in the initial areas of darks. This led to quite an organic outline, and in particular the ears are very whimsical. I like it.
I used 2mm mechanical pencils of various hardness (2b, 4b, 8b) to build up this drawing. It was a lot of fun, and I finally was loosening up. I was trying to keep in mind the advice from my tutor about paying attention to the lights. The glaze on this little one made that difficult as it is glossy in some parts and matt in others.
Restarting, Stopping and Experimenting
From there, I grabbed a goblet of tarnished beaten metal, and decided to use only a 5mm 6b graphite stick. It quickly became obvious that I had fallen back on old preferences of smooth gradients, due to the size of the lead. I stuck with it, and decided to take the image to a place i was happy with, with the assistance of a chunky eraser to given an impression of the metal texture. Not accurate by any means, of has the right feel.
A long time ago, I took an introductory painting course at the large art gallery here. We painted self portraits, but then used clear mylar to paint additional removable layers on top. It was quite interesting.
I got some nearly-clear drawing vellum, and decided to go back and focus on hatching for a layer. I quite like the final effect. Here, i did my best to keep the pencil quite sharp, and layered my hatching in many directions, using the underlayer as a shadow map.
It might be interesting to do this with a coloured under layer.
In Review
- I think I took “pencil” too literally. I could have used colour here.
- I didn’t put enough work into situating the objects into a composition. All but one is just floating in space, without even a shadow to indicate they’re on a surface.
- In the third palette knife image I liked how the 5mm soft lead allowed me to make tiny expressive marks. I used them again in parts of the goblet. Just quick marks
- Using the continuous line as a basis for the vase object gave me a very good framework to build on top of. I wish i had taken intermediate images, as I quite liked some of those squiggles.
- Pay Attention To The Brief. If I’m to draw natural objects, let’s make sure I actually do that.
Looking at Other Artists – Dean Hopkins
By coincidence, this post came across my Twitter feed as I was reviewing this exercise.
What can I see here?
- Alignment of hatch marks to the angles of the plane.
- Limited obvious cross hatching.
- Density and pressure variations to provide contrast.
- Very clear planning of the shapes, and arrangements.