To recap the past few lessons: the first lesson was about measuring, proportions and general observation; and the tools which enable you to more accurately record the object in front of you.  The second lesson was about the use of contrast and the hierarchy of emphasis in a drawing or painting, and how you can push contrasts and manipulate your visual, to force the viewer to look wherever you want them to.  Yesterday’s lesson was all about mark-making and how mark-making facilitates tone. We looked at mark-making through the ages up to, and including the nineteenth century.  The twentieth century was omitted because…well…everything went tits up in the twentieth century and that’s for another day.

We started with the sixteenth century and looked at how the Old Masters used mark-making in their drawings.  If you look at images by any of the Renaissance artists, you can see a definite pattern in how they rendered tone on their sketches.  Firstly, they would use what is called ‘soft-tone’.  This is probably the easiest way to draw and you just draw tone, rather than line.  At this point line doesn’t come into it.  Soft tone is the use of e.g. light circular movements to build up your tone very gradually. You start very light and you can manipulate the marks into whatever shape you want them to be.  What you get is a very hazy and soft drawing.  Once this was achieved the artist would then scratch into this tone utilising hatching.

I was given the task of completing this type of exercise, whereby I just had to start drawing by building circular motion tone.  I had no idea what I was drawing – I just drew.  I started making the object larger and found I had a ball.  I then moved further along the page a little and started building more tone until I was drawing a shape using negative space.  I moved along again and started drawing my final shape, with no idea what it was going to be, but turned out to be a jug of some kind – again using negative space.  So what I had was the black ball standing in more contrast to the other items, so I started building tone around all of the objects.  This meant that the black ball was no longer the focal point, but I wanted to place the items in a hierarchy, so that I had one mainly contrasting item, one less contrasting and the last one even less contrasting. In order to do this, I hatched lines into the whole drawing.  I made the hatching tighter on the balls, thus blending them further into their background.  The jug I hatched more loosley.  It was still blended into the background slightly but still maintaining focal point. As you can see, the black ball doesn’t look entirely flat black.  There appears to be light in between the hatched lines.  A very cool little trick if you ask me!

In the eighteenth century, during the time of the Grand Tour, this style was dispensed with and artists began rendering images in just soft tone. Without the line, what you get is a much more atmospheric and soft drawing.  The problem with this method is that if you draw an item too dark then you have to darken the tone everywhere else. It’s certainly an easier way to draw, but rather more painstaking I think!  So this was my next task.  As you can see this is very soft and atmospheric – like a rainy day.   I added another item to the drawing – a spoon – and at first I made it third in my hierarchy.  My goal was to make it fourth in the hierachy, so I had to darken the black ball and the jug.  As you can see from this method, it’s quite a cool way to play about with hierarchies, very easy to draw with, and great for adding atmosphere.

We then get to the nineteenth century when soft tone was dispensed with and cross-hatching became more prevalent.  It’s a complete u-turn to the previous century in terms of style.  Cross-hatching on its own is a very effective and quick way of drawing tone.  You can vary the proximity of the hatching in different parts of the drawing in order to emphasise movement and to indicate a shift in contrast.  Again, my task was to complete another little still life exercise using this method, working both in positive and negative space, and again, I played around with manipulating the focal point leaving lighter areas around the black ball whilst tightening up the hatching elsewhere in the drawing. I also got the chance to indicate a little tone on the jug itself by tightening the hatching.  This type of drawing also produces a different mood.  I’m not sure what that mood is, but it’s definitely not warm and fuzzy!

So that was a bit of history to help understand how to utilise tone and a bit of drawing so that I can develop my mark-making.  My task for the next lesson is to produce 2 x A5 still-life drawings: one in eighteenth, and one in nineteenth century style.

I have been drawing furiously recently and I’m really getting into it. I’ve been sketching whilst sitting at the bus stop or anywhere that I’ve got a few minutes and a scrap of paper and pencil. I bought a lovely A3 hardback sketchbook yesterday which has several pages of work in it already.  I’ve been trying to draw faces from my imagination.  No mean feat considering I’ve only ever drawn one or two faces before (ages ago) and they were sitting right in front of me.  They’re coming along nicely and I’m really chuffed with them for first attempts.  I’ll add some tomorrow.

I also started back at college on Monday, so I’ve been very busy with that. I’ll add details in the coming days as I don’t want to overwhelm you in a single post.  Needless to say, I couldn’t be happier being back at class again…and no panic attacks since starting!

I hadn’t taken in my drawings from home, but I told him that I was doing just that: overworking them. He said it’s not about doing that perfect drawing, but it’s to enable me to see properly.  Ah, ok, I get it now.

So today I got out my easel, and decided to draw my little statue guy again.  You know the one, the Incan statue (or at least it’s definitely South American). I love the little guy. I say little, he’s actually about a foot tall! Anyway, there is a lot of detail going on and plenty of line. I kept trying to bear in mind the point of the exercise, but I didn’t want to over/underwork it.  I was also trying to keep in mind Friday’s lesson on use of contrast so that it wasn’t completely flat.  So, I did this little drawing today, using my lovely new pencil.  I’ve been searching for that elusive pencil that’s just perfect for me.  I bought a Conté graphite pencil, a few Faber-Castell’s, a Derwent Sketching pencil, and a Derwent Graphic pencil last week.  I was trying to find the right one so thought I’d try a few out, and the mid-range priced Derwent Graphic won out.  I love the feel of it, and how it sketches. It just feels perfect to draw with, so I’m going to buy a heap more this week.

Back to the drawing: it’s far from perfect, but perfection wasn’t the aim. I did this on a scale of 1:1 and I took the measurement from the head.  The whole piece worked out at just over 6 heads high and 3½ heads wide. I marked this on the paper then I started measuring various points out trying to find the most suitable landmarks.  I then started drawing in the various bits and pieces freehand.  I measured again afterwards and my measuring was fairly accurate. Imagine my delight!

So, I carried on working, getting most of the statue in from head to toe; the arms I left pretty much until the end.  So I measured again, and from the torso downwards my measuring was out.  All of suddent the feet were trying to go over the baseline by almost a head’s height.  Rather than get frustrated and rub the offending area out, I measured again from the top, and I got to just below the head and that’s were my measurements started to lose it.  One part was a small bit out, which affected all the areas further down, so I just marked out where they should have been and readjusted.  It was as simple as that!

I then started getting in some shading, but I didn’t want to do too much.  I was aiming more for a bit of contrast.  I wanted the face to be the focal point, and with a few bits of shading, I think I was fairly successful in that.  It’s not brilliant, but I achieved what I had set out to do.  Exercise done! The bonus is that, in all, it took me just over 2 hours! The first time I drew this statue, complete with shading, it took me over 10 hours.  I really like this drawing. There’s a lot left unsaid, although I no doubt could have left some line out, but I haven’t got to mark-making yet, so for the moment, I will draw what I’ve been taught.  What do you think? Has it been successful?

Oh, if you’re interested in reading some art history, may I suggest a book that was suggested to me? My tutor pointed me in the way of Vasari’s ‘Lives of the Artists’ (transl. George Bull). Vasari’s Lives is the most important art book ever written. He gathered together all current knowledge of Florenetine artistic heritage and mixed it with contemporary art theory of his time. An artist and architect in his own right, he was also a friend of Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto, and near contemporary of Leonardo and Raphael.  He wrote on many artists starting from Cimabue onwards, spanning some 300 years of art history.  He also details how the artists worked and the book gives a unique insight into the artists themselves.  I have just purchased the book, and started reading it today.  I think it will be of immense use in understanding the techniques and context in which the artists worked.

On Friday, at the Atelier, I did little in the way of drawing and instead I was given a lesson in some Art History, going from Cimabue (the last Italian painter working in the Byzantine tradition, and who pioneered the move towards naturalism) through to the great landscape painter, Turner.  The point of the lesson was to gain a quick overview of how artists went from a very flat and highly stylised form of art to a more realistic and natural form, and to show how tone was used to create depth, focal points, and hierarchy through contrast.

Cimabue was pioneering in the sense that his figures were depicted with shading and more life-like proportions.  His student, Giotto, is regarded as the first great artist of the Renaissance in Italy.  Patronage was granted for the creation of religious works, but moved towards portraiture and propaganda of a different type, but all to show the grandeur of the patron himself or to exalt the patron’s status. It wasn’t really until the Grand Tour (c. 1660-1840) that we started to see a shift in emphasis in painting.

From the beginning of that period, we started to see the landed gentry and upper nobility of Britain being alerted to the classical antiquities of the Romans and Greeks, and such a tour was deemed essential to the young artist.  For instance, they were able to see, first-hand, the remnants of Pompeii and they had access to the most beautiful landscapes; for the first time this was seen to be the subject of paintings. They still included people within their works but they were secondary to the beauty of nature.  Although nature and landscape had been employed in painting, it was usually within a religious context or was just imagined.  Indeed, the Northern European artists painted Italy in an idealised form, drawing from classical poetry and having never actually visited the country!  The dramatic growth of landscape painting on a grand scale did not happen until the 17th Century. This is when we also see travellers taking watercolour box sets to document their visit.

Hierarchy

Think of many landscape watercolour paintings you’ve seen, particularly early watercolours.  There is a hierarchy working within the painting, which I was never aware of, but is blindingly obvious now that it has been pointed out to me.  The hierarchy dictates that in order to create depth and give a sense of distance, the closer you are to the object, the more vibrant and in focus it should be.  Conversely, the further away the more hazy the object becomes.

The hierachy is as follows:

1. Foreground – sharp, crisp details and darker;
2. Midground – slightly hazier but still in some detail;
3. Background – Little focus, duller in tone and lighter.

It makes sense that the hierarchy should have worked in this way.  You’re sitting on top of a hill looking out over the landscape and the nearest object to you is in focus, and is more vibrant in colour.  The further away the object, the less detail there is and the more muted it becomes.  There’s just one slight problem with this hierarchy:

If a tree is in the foreground, then naturally everything else in the foreground is going to be overshadowed by that tree due to its size.  It’s so large that it dominates the scene.  Whatever is largest in the foreground is going to overshadow the rest of the piece.  Your eye isn’t going to be drawn to the small person sitting to the left or right of that tree, no matter how much the painter may want you to.

As you can see in this painting by Paul Sandby, the painting is completely dominated by the trees in the foreground.  The painting is called ‘A Farmhouse on the Road to Staines’. Is the focus of this piece the farmhouse? I suppose you could say that the area of contrast is greatest where the shadows from the trees meet the sunlight where it is almost hitting the geese beside the farmhouse.  That is certainly true, but there is also a strong contrast where the horse and its shadow meets.  As far as I can see the foreground starts where the corrugated iron on the bottom right and the shadows from the trees meet.  Follow the shadows along the ground, around the trees and around the horse and cart.  To me that is the foreground. It is also the sharpest and darkest.  The midground starts where the light and shadows meet on the ground, behind the right hand tree till it meets the left hand tree.  The whole house and the tree behind that would be the midground.  Look at the change in detail, and the change in brush strokes.  The background is clearly everything else in the blueish-white tones.  To my mind, the focus should be far more centred on the house.

So, the hierarchy had to change.  It is at this point that we start to see the use of contrast to force the viewer to look at what the painter wanted to be seen.  Whichever area has the greatest contrast is what automatically pulls the viewer’s eyes.  For instance, in the painting above, we could have centred the light around the farmhouse, kept the foreground dark and perhaps pushed the midtones in the background.

If we look at ‘The Admiral’s House’ by Constable, we can see the emphasis has changed.  The foreground is muted, and the brush strokes are loose.  The midground comes more sharply into focus with its detail and because it contrasts against the dark shadow side of the trees, pushes the viewer’s eye towards the house.  You can see the trees are taller but they are not the main focus.

So the hierarchy becomes:

1. Midground – more in focus, sharper details, sharper contrast
2. Background – Still in contrast against the trees, but less detailed
3. Foreground – less details, loose brush strokes.

If we look at Turner, often he had as many as 17 hierarchies, but he was the exception to the rule.  Generally, there were roughly 3 hierarchies.  If we apply these theories to portraiture, then the hierarchy places emphasis on the face with sharpest contrasts surrounding it; followed by the hands, then perhaps some detail on the clothing or to the side of the person would come third.

Practical Application

So with that in mind, it was my turn to put the theory I had just learnt into practice.

I was asked to draw 3 different pieces of fruit.  The aim was not to make a good drawing but rather it was an exercise. The 3 pieces of fruit were to have exactly the same tone.

As you can see there is no focal point and all of the images are flat.  The next thing I had to do was to make the cherry the focal point.  So, I made the cherry darker, making it contrast against the white of the paper. I haven’t had to do anything else to the cherry to make it stand out.

The next exercise was to make the apple the main focal point, but without altering the cherry in anyway. So I drew in black tone around the apple and erased the midtone.  I also added charcoal around the cherry to blend it more into the background, thus making the sharpest area of contrast the darkest dark, against the lightest light.

The final piece of the exercise was to make the pear the sharpest contrast, but what puzzled me for about 10 minutes was that I had to do so without adding the lightest light and darkest dark into it.  So, I made both the apple and the cherry blend into their background and although the pear is neither the darkest nor lightest object on the page, it offers the most contrast because the lightest light is pushed against it.

I must admit, I found the whole thing quite taxing.  It’s one thing to understand something in theory, but quite another to put into practice. What my tutor told me is that it will now be permanently lodged into my brain, and I know I won’t look at paintings in quite the same manner again.

One other thing, I’m starting back at college on Thursday, so things are about to get crazy again. It’s all very exciting, and I can’t wait to share my timetable with you.  On a final note, a few days ago I discovered that my blog was mentioned on another website: Guide to Art Schools, which gives details of Art Schools in the US and Canada.  I took a mosey on over and discovered, to my sheer surprise, that there was an article entitled 50 Great Blogs by Student Artists and that mine is either No.2 in their Top 50 or I’m in the Top 5 but just happen to have the number 2 beside my name.  Either way, I was completely blown away!  It’s so weird to see a review of my website, but a good weird!

Stay tuned for the next lesson: mark-making.

Well, for starters, it took me long enough to find something complex enough to draw.  George said that I must always draw from life – never from a photo – and that I should choose something quite complex.  I’ve either got things that are too “easy” to draw or that are way too complex. After much humming and hawing, I finally settled on a piece, which was the most interesting and not too simplistic.

You can probably tell, from the different statues I’ve drawn, that I’m into my ethnic pieces. I love the primitivism and naturalism of them.

Next up, I started measuring.  It made most sense to measure the head first, then I worked out how many heads tall and wide the statue is.  That was the easy part.  The drawing is on a scale of 4:1 on A3 paper. My next task was to start making marks on the paper, but it took me some time to find a good jumping-off point.  It was essential to find that point so that I could then start marking other points off. It really took me a while – more humming and hawing – but I finally decided to start at the bottom.  It’s not normally where I start from but it seemed to be the best place in this instance.

I measured the height from the circular base to the seat the female is sitting on.  Then I marked the height from there to the belt on her waist. I still had to try and find the centre of the statue, so I measured the height of the bowl at the top so that I could get the head drawn in.  I then measured from the widest part (at the hands) to the nearest landmark, the top of her hair (both on the right side). From there I was able to measure the width of her hair, then measured the negative space between there and her left land (from our POV).

It was taking an age, and then I remembered, ‘work loosely and freely, measuring as and when is required’. So I started working on the bottom part of the statue, from the waist down.  I roughly sketched them in and it all appeared to be going pretty well; I kept roughly checking bits here and there. I then moved on to sketching the top half. I found this to be more tricky.  I had got into a rhythm on the bottom half, but the rhythm was gone in the top half.  I continued on with it and got everything done.  It took about an hour and a half. Not too bad, time-wise, I thought.

As I said, it appeared to be going well, but once I stood back I saw how wrong it was. The arms were totally wrong, the bowl at the top was wrong. There were other bits and pieces too.  I don’t think it can just be me when it comes to drawing circles, but aren’t they very deceptive? Well, it’s an ellipse when looking at it from views other than directly above it or underneath it. Time and again I struggled with it.

It was time to start measuring more accurately, and this is where most of my time went.  I was measuring, correcting, re-measuring, and correcting again. I think that’s ok though. I think that’s the aim of the exercise.  Try to draw what you see; correct if necessary.

The bowl at the top was looking much more like an ellipse, although I think it’s weird how it appears that the bowl is flat at the back.  The bowl at the bottom was looking more like a curved rectangle, but it is a circle.  I think I’ve drawn it accurately.  I made my adjustments to the arms, which looked really strange when drawn but the proportions are correct. I shortened, and widened the torso just a fraction. I didn’t have to adjust the hair and the legs were pretty much correct.

Fours hours passed. My feet were aching from standing for so long in the one place. I decided that I had to stop there. I honestly could not stand any longer, and I had to go and prepare supper: more standing on my feet. Woohoo.

What I have noticed is that some of my measurements have definitely improved.  I’ve noticed that I am able to judge the angle of a point, in relation to another quite well, but I’ve been practising that since college. Another thing I notice is that I’m feeling much more comfortable with how I have to hold my pencil.  It is becoming much freer and as a result, my lines are becoming more direct.  Prior to that I was holding a pencil in my writing style and it meant my lines were short and raggedy.  Ok, they look raggedy in this drawing but that’s because I kept drawing the line over and over again, back and forth, but at least it was one continuous line.  I feel that my anxiousness and lack of confidence keeps me from being quite as direct and commanding.  I know this will come in time, but I can see definite improvement.

Tomorrow I’m determined to get the face done.  I am terrified of drawing faces because it’s so easy to make a mistake, but hopefully with my measuring techniques I’ll manage this time.

I can look at a painting, a sculpture, a piece of architecture and say this is art, but I can also look at a shark in a tank and say this isn’t art.  What’s the difference?  Is this is a failing on my part? Am I too limited in my intellect to ask myself the question of what a piece is trying to say when confronted with it? Or is some of it so completely up its own arse, and we are merely being conned?

So why was Rothko “not my thing”? Well, I said to George that there are large prints up in the college of Rothko’s work, and when looking at them I get nothing.  It does nothing for me.  I don’t get it, and anyone can paint a square block of paint.  Can’t they? At least that’s what I thought.  George asked if I’d ever seen a real Rothko painting.  I said no.  He said that I would have to stand in front of one, and that looking at a print is useless. I will concede that to some degree, but it’s still a square block of paint.  He also said that because I liked dark art (not zombies, and goth horror stuff), that I should appreciate Rothko.

Slow Swirl at Edge of Sea

Rites of Lilith

So, I came home and looked up Rothko online, and what I read about him was fascinating.  I loved his earlier to middle works, but then his work became more and more abstracted.  What I understood though, was the concepts behind those abstract works.  I read that some of these works are so massive that when you walk into a room and you are confronted by a piece, that if you stand up close enough to it you become enveloped by the painting.  You see only the colours, and this was his intention. Rothko stated that “the fact that one usually begins with drawing is already academic. We start with color.”  To Rothko, “the modernist artist, like the child and the primitive by whom he is influenced, expresses an innate feeling for form that is, in the best and most universal work, expressed without mental interference. It is a physical and emotional, non-intellectual experience”.  He also believe that he could free unconscious energies through his art, and described the process of creating this artwork as being towards clarity.

Rothko wanted to create optical flickers, with colours vibrating against the background of other colours.  He wanted to overwhelm the viewer with the sheer size, but he also wanted them to be intimate and human:  “To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience… However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command!”

You can certainly see from this painting that if you were confronted with it on a huge scale, it would be most disconcerting.  Well, it would be for me as the colours are very jarring. But this is all well and good, having read about the artist, his history, his spirituality and what he was aiming for.  However, when you look at a print or even if you walk into a gallery and see this painting, would you automatically get it?  Would you try and search for meaning in it? Would you be disconcerted by it (probably the intention of the artist) but not give it any more thought than that? Do you even have to understand it? Is the feeling elicited from it enough? Does that make it any better?

I mean, I can get it completely now. The deeper philosophy and meaning fascinates me, but I would still be more inclined to use the print as a complementary piece to my furniture because it matches my colour scheme. Prior to having read about Rothko, I wouldn’t have given it any more than a cursory nod to my decorating tastes.  It is obviously belittling to the artist, but unless you are prepared to go and try to fathom every single piece of work you look at, and read into the artist and their intentions, it’s really very difficult to be anything else.  I mean that in no way to demean any artist and their work, but that’s how I feel.

I still look at Damien Hirst’s shark in formaldehyde in complete bafflement, even though I get what he means, but I still can’t see it as art.  To me it is a con, and the people who bought it conned themselves. It’s a concept – I liken it to advertising.  So, is it the idea itself that is art, the execution of the idea, both or none? Does it have to be created by the artist themselves, or can it be communicated to others to do the work for them?  If it is the idea, the execution of the idea, then can we call television adverts art? If not, why not?  Surely it can’t be because an advert is trying to sell something.  Is that not what much art is about?  Selling a product, a brand, an image.

I am constantly challenged by these questions, and my answers are always changing.  I guess it’s the unanswerable, but surely there’s a line…somewhere.  People much more clever than I am have debated this age old question and will continue to do so, but what I would like is for you, the reader, to challenge yourself: pick an artist that you don’t get, understand or struggle to define as an artist and read about them.  Read about their work, and question your stance on them or that particular style. Has it changed your view or confirmed it? I’d love to know the outcome, perhaps post an article on it, asking your readers the same question.

I know that I won’t look at a Rothko in the same manner again, and maybe that’s the point, but I can say it’s still not my thing.

“I’m not an abstractionist. I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.” (Mark Rothko)

Remember I attended an all day life-drawing class two weeks ago? Well it’s not a class as such, just an informal place for people to paint.  There’s no actual teaching.  While only being slightly disappointed, I was glad just to have a model to paint from again. However, I had a conversation about the way I like to learn: by being led by the hand.

It’s not for everyone, and in fact, everyone at the class said that they hated being taught this way.  They preferred a much less rigid school of learning.  Not me.  I have never liked being taught by ideas, abstractions or where there is room for interpretation – unless you are studying something like English literature that is.  However, when learning a skill, rigid learning is the only way to go.  You build the foundations first.  If you have solid foundations, the rest of the structure is far less likely to fall down and will stand for years to come.

Anyway, one of the attendees mentioned that if I liked formal teaching, then I would like George Collier, an Aberdeen artist who runs an Atelier in Aberdeen.  I had no idea such a thing existed here!  So I made enquiries, talked to George, and I’m going to see him at the beginning of the week. This is part of his studio below.

I’d heard of Ateliers before, but I only knew of them as workshops, and not as teaching anything in a specific manner. I didn’t realise that they followed the principles and techniques of the old masters, or that there was a resurgence in them (“the acquisition of fundamental art skills was neglected in much of 20th-century art school education, with the emphasis instead being on ideas and personal expression”).  I cetainly feel this last statement is very true indeed.  I love being at college, and it has pushed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined, but there is no formal teaching.  The emphasis is definitely on ideas and creativity rather than on skill.  When being assessed they will point out where you are going wrong, but they definitely don’t teach you and it was an issue I raised at department meetings.  I emphasised the need to learn basic drawing skills, which to be fair, the tutors said they would incorporate further into the next session’s curriculum, but it gives you an idea of where the emphasis lies.

From what I’ve read, this is also true of many other places.  I love painting, and I love expressing myself, but I have a basic lack of skill.  No question about it; and as I’m nearing going back to college, I feel the old anxieties coming back about not having the necessary skills.  I know I won’t get them from college, so this is the reason I’m signing up to the Atelier.

I will learn sight-size and comparative-size methods.  Sight-size will consist of Bargue drawings, cast drawing, cast painting and life drawing/painting.  They are produced through the careful measuring using strings, sticks, mirrors, levels and plumblines – the artist draws the subject so that, when viewed from the set vantage point, the drawing and the subject have exactly the same dimensions. This produces a form of realism based upon careful observations of nature with attention to detail.

Whereas, comparative-size methods consists of any method of drawing that involves making accurate measurements primarily using the naked eye. This  requires proportional accuracy, but allows the artist to vary the size of the image created. This is how I measure at the moment but without the great accuracy!

I know there are pros and cons of learning the Atelier method, but to be quite honest with you, I’m not a child or teenager and as such I will be able to take the good and bad from it and discern them both.  It will not produce a clone or slave to a particular style being taught because I’m old enough to know better, but I’m also not going to rebel just because I don’t like a particular style.  I will understand the reason why I’m doing it.  I don’t want to imitate the masters, but I want to learn from them.  I want to have the tools they had, without becoming a master forger.  I don’t want to be mechanical, but I know I have to do it to in order to equip me for the freedom later on, and I intend on getting absolutely everything I can from it.  Eeee, it’s so exciting, and I can’t wait!  I’d love to hear your thoughts, positive and negative on this subject.

I decided to show some of my scribbles/sketches.  They are a nothing.  Not artistic, not inspiration, not anything, but I thought you’d like to see what I will draw on and what’s in my head.

Ok, in this first one, at least the writings are art related:

The next one as you can see has some mathematical formulae on it.  This is Euclid’s Golden Ratio, phi, or the Divine Proportion.  I was reading on the Golden Ratio, the Golden Rectangle, and the Fibonacci Sequence and wanted to understand exactly how they worked.  Mathematicians and artists have been fascinated with these mathematical theorems for thousands of years.  Given my love of maths they amused me for hours.

It is said that Leonardo Da Vinci used the Golden Ratio in the Mona Lisa, and the proportions of Michaelangelo’s David fit the Golden Ratio.  Salvador Dali also used the Golden Ratio in his Sacrament of the Last Supper.

As you can see here, I have further scribblings on the Golden Ratio, and drew the sequence.  I also scribbled my hand in oil pastels.

I started scribbling on this sheet but I was also playing Assassin’s Creed 2 on the Xbox 360, and being the person I am I wanted to collect absolutely everything in the game, so I could 100% it.  What I have scribbled is the treasures, feathers, glyphs, statues collected, and number of viewpoints climbed.

The jotter that these scribbles are taken from is nearly full, and has everthing from colour studies to Gaelic, programming languages like Javascript, HTML and CSS to Contextual Studies, shopping list to memory training notes, Teeline shorthand to Adobe Illustrator.  I scribble pieces of text from the tv to conversations I’m holding on the phone.

This page alone contains stuff relating to my WordPress theme, some web pages that were shown on BBC Click, text relating to my mobile phone plan and some drawing basics.

It’s a pretty varied and random jotter.  As I said, it’s a nothing but it kind of gives you an idea of what my mind is like!

I was looking online a couple of days ago and found that there are life drawing classes in the city every Wednesday evening.  They also hold day-long classes every six weeks on a Sunday.  They just happened to be holding the day-long session today, and luckily for me, they had a few spaces available so I booked myself in.

The session ran for six hours with single pose. It was a fair old challenge for me, since the maximum time I’ve spent on life drawing is two and a half hours. It was a decent enough sized room but the heat was blistering. With the dizziness I’ve been experiencing I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through, but somehow I did.  I did some warm up exercises since I’ve not drawn a live model in months.  They were woeful. I used a graphite stick, then changed to charcoal and chalk.  I’m not a huge fan of drawing with pencil, that’s why I changed to charcoal.  I won’t show my results as they are pretty woeful as I said.

I changed to paint after lunch break since I’m more comfortable with that, but today it wasn’t really my friend.  Obviously, I’m very rusty, and it shows.  I spent hours working on this painting and every time I got to the face it just wasn’t working for me.

I kept scrubbing over it with a fresh layer of paint, and so I couldn’t finish it in the allotted time.  It was very frustrating. I know I’m rusty, so I just have to be patient. I will return to the painting, but I’m not sure where I’m going to go with it.

It was good to get out of the house and back into a classroom environment. I’ve really missed it, and I’ve found it difficult to function artistically outside of it.  Weird, since I found it really difficult to work in a classroom at the start.  Funny how things are.