I am instructed to “do it again” based on the composition of Exercise 2.3: Mysterious Tea Party, but work differently. Mix my media choices up, and work with things not traditionally considered to be ‘art media’.
I like the idea of putting down washes, and work on top of that. Reminds me a little of Andy Warhol’s screen printing process. I also like the idea layering paper onto the work, and maybe i can mix it up further and attempt an blot line technique. This is arising out of my recent visit to the Andy Warhol exhibit at the AGO.
So, to summarize:
- Layer layer layer
- Coloured paper, and acrylic washes on the surface directly.
- Blot line transfer.
Planning
I am to revisit the composition and add/remove elements as I see fit.
I’m going to remove the mask. I dislike how much attention it pulled. I need to think about simplicity as I’ll have to work fast with the blot line technique. I’m thinking perhaps of really zooming in on the small cat and fish figurines. A stolen snack after the tea party. I’ll need to consider how to represent the table cloth, as I want to keep that — my mother wove it, so let’s keep it in the frame.
How to Draw a Cat figurine
I jotted down some quick ideas on how to represent the elements of this study. I need to keep in mind that whatever technique I use needs to be fast so I can blot it quick enough. Although I use non-transferable media here, really I’m working through design. I just wanted to use different instruments as I sketched.
Graphite Stick
This doesn’t look practical for blot line
Mechanical Pencil
I like this one. Mechanical pencil and continuous line. There is something a bit horrific about this one.
Charcoal Pencil
How very cubist of me. This is very appealing.
Lumograph Black Pencil
Well this went somewhere. I’m not sure where, but definitely somewhere.
Cubist Cat Changing Course
I really liked the shapes of the third cat. It is so far from my normal drawing. Its so flat, and unrendered and … something. wireframe?
I had intended to start off with the blot line, but then as I was laying origami paper to create an impression of the fabric weave, I decided to change things up.
How do you know when you’ve gone completely off the rails of an exercise?
Chalk, Charcoal, Pastel, Origami on paper
The story follows along from Exercise 2.3. The small cat has snuck away with the fish, from the tea party. The third cat is on the case, slinking in from the background.
I want to say that the Warhol exhibit affected me here. But… I don’t know how to disentangle that thought.
A close up on the ears. I was trying to give an impression here of the highlights on the figurine. I’m not sure if it worked, but it definitely added to the oddness of the image. To my eye it become metals rods, instead of flat shapes, and the transitions mess with my expectations. I quite like it.
The origami fish was fun to make, but I need to be careful about how to store this piece. The fish will get crushed if I’m not careful. I tried to use my blue pastels to add the scales onto the fish, but it was very hard as I didn’t have enough control. I need to think about how I’d do that again.
I really like how the charcoal skipped across the edges of the paper. It produces a very interesting mark.
Revise and Repeat
Starting over, I re-selected items from my initial inventory in Exercise 2.3. This time I chose the cup, fish, and the piece of amethyst. To give a sense of space I put a piece of origami paper on my table.
Here, I was interested in trying ink since I am very much not comfortable in ink. To make it harder, I decided to use a brush. My intent was to loosely draw the objects, then wash down some colour with watercolours.
This iteration went super fast. I quickly sketched in the forms with a pencil. I made a mistake in placement, and moved the cup be decided to keep the lines. It made an interesting pattern, having the duplication of lines.
Then, using a brush, I drew in the objects. I liked putting in the blacks on the amethyst trying to give an impression of dark shadows and facets. When inking the cup/fish, I had originally intended for the “mistake cup” to be cut off by the correct one. As if the correct cup was overlapping. But I mistakenly carried my brush stroke too far, so I went with it.
I then took watercolour pencils to doodle in some colours, then washed over with a couple colours of watercolour paint. I like the result, especially with the mistakes I made.
Next time I need to make sure I remove my graphite lines before painting.
Reflection
Its very interesting how I didn’t follow my plan. With none of my images did I even attempt blot line. Each one was completely different from each other, and in various levels of realism.
In the second piece that I posted, I really wanted to fully paint in the origami paper, but I wasn’t sure where the line is between painting and drawing and so pulled myself back.
What was successful
I’m really liking pastels. In the 2.3 image, I really enjoyed that process, and the building up of colour. I also really liked how hard it was to correct mistakes. That forced me to just keep moving forward, and not get paralyzed with drawing “perfectly”
Conversely, if I’m going to do origami again, I need to give that some serious thought first. It was very hard to apply the texture I wanted, and now I have to figure out how to store the image.
Use of Colour
I used a whole range of colour intensity, from light washes through the intense pastel and bright origami paper.
The most abstract of the ones I posted is the most striking, I think, in that the colour is very bright large patches.
Large vs Small
Oddly, I generally worked quite large here. Even the studies I did (except the quick doodles in 2.3) were A4 (the cat figurine style photos are examples). This is not normally what I do, and A4 is the largest I tend to work on my own (except when I sit down to “do something special”)
Working at this size it felt like I had room to really think about placement and texture. Working small lets me cut corners, and avoid having to work out some details.
Interesting Accidents
In the abstract image, I layered sheets of origami paper to represent the cloth. I cut these after I glued them in place, and this was a mistake. I really dislike the tattered edge. Next time, I need to measure, and cut, then glue in place.
In the ink & wash image, I like how I left the duplicated cup and fish in place. It adds an abstractness. Or, perhaps,a sense of time — the cup being moved in the arrangement?
Sense of Depth
In the abstract image i intentionally flattened the perspective and I like the effect it has.
The other two have a fairly good representation of space, I think. Though the ink&wash one is much more distorted.
Relation to paper’s edge
In my tutor feedback from unit 1, my tutor challenged me to consider the relationship to framing, and paper edges — minus where I put the tape on the paper to hold it in place.
In 2.3, I intentionally pushed the composition to the edges so that objects would be cut off. In 2.4 I drew in faint framing marks and kept myself within them as much as I could. In the watercolour was image, I inked in that border.
My thinking is that I should make these choices consciously, inclusive of the composition. I think I’m doing better at this, and not just leaving it as an after thought.
Representation of texture
I really like how I represented the cloth texture in 2.3. This took laying up of flat colours, faded ocher stitch shapes, then brighter yellow stitches.
I’m also happy with the glass of the lamp. Here I created various random shapes and smudged them out. Then used various “whites” to create the glass edges and highlights.
The blue cat was a difficult texture, though I think this was effective. The actual object is flat iron with various spray paint effects on it.
Impact of changing object arrangement
I changed the arrangement quite dramatically for each drawing I made — its very difficult for me to draw the same thing over and over I’m finding. I also changed my approach dramatically each time. I don’t think the subjects changed my approach.
Going to the Warhol exhibit between 2.3 and 2.4 definitely changed my approach. The level of abstraction was quite dramatic in 2.4.