Part 1 Exercise 1 Group of Objects

Initially my sketches in my sketchbook were very disproportional. I realized that I was getting hung-up of doing one container after another, often starting at the back of the composition. This meant that by the time I had worked forward the placement of items were totally off. I then switched to working from the front objects towards the back. I also tried a more gestural approach, followed by lines to define the contours of the containers and bottles. I found the need to observe the negative spaces more keenly in order to ensure the correct placement and shape of overlapping areas. Box angles were a challenge, as often I would concentrate so much on the angles of the sides, that I would get the relative size of the sides incorrect. Bottle lids also posed a problem to me - especially when foreshortening was involved.

After four preliminary sketches, and a few days break, I decided that I was tired of the traditional pencil and eraser regime. As I had fun drawing with a toddler on Sunday, I decided to try to remember his enthusiasm at discovering the mark making ability of crayons, so opted to try a sketch in crayons. I love the color teal - it makes me feel happy.




What I did find was that I had to be more decisive about my marks as there was no option of erasing, but I could start out lightly.

Study of basket weaving

I love the art equipment basket my husband bought me for Christmas. I spent the rest of the study period studying its contours and how to indicate three dimensions with its twisted forms. My initial drawing was totally disproportionate, so I decided to draw right on top of it. As I am such a perfectionist, this was an attempt to force the idea that my sketchbook does not need to be perfect. I am still having trouble with the perspective and relative proportions. I might decide to return to this project once I have practiced my drawing skills even more. My observational skills have certainly become lazy over the past 25 years of not being seriously engaged in drawing. 

Basket study

This exercise reminds me of the work of Alberto Giacometti. I love his exploratory sketches of still-life objects and his workshop.

A number of years ago saw a simple sketch of a dish drying rack with random kitchen items in it. In thinking of what I would like to do as my final study, I decided to give the dish rack idea a try. Here is my initial practice sketch from my sketchbook.





Sketchbook Preparatory drawing

 

 

I really struggled with the perspective of the dish rack. Because of the foreshortened angle of the rack, it was hard to get everything proportioned and the front of the dish rack could have done with being a bit deeper. I think I will go with this composition however, as I think it has potential and is visually more dynamic than the straight forward front on angle.

As I am living in Cotonou, Benin, it is extremely difficult to get ahold of A1 or A2 size paper. The large-scale paper I did find was about the quality of photocopy paper. Because of the poor quality of the paper available, I decided to use A3 size paper for my final sketch, so that I could work on the perspective without running the risk of the paper tearing from erasing.

Final Sketch



I am amazed at how when you become fixated on one aspect of the perspective in a drawing, your eventually realize that the area just adjust to it is totally misrepresented. The bowl in the middle was the hardest item to draw. The angle of the elliptical base draw at its degree of foreshortening proved to be a challenge. The dish rack also posed a challenge, but I must admit that I really felt as if I pushed myself to greater levels of observation than I have done in years, so I feel like this exercise has definitely increased my awareness of the intricacies of placement and perspective.

 

What I Learned

• You have to constantly hop back and forward between viewing the composition as a whole and the intricacies of how objects interact and relate to one another.
• Curved bowls at strange angles are deceptively difficult to get in perspective..
• Aerial perspective adds an interesting dynamic to a group of objects.
• Photographing pencil drawings takes a lot of effort and I still don't seem to quite have it right.

Research Point

I am convinced that the power of an artwork is in its ability to act as a conduit to express emotion. However, not all art conveys emotion. I discovered this when touring the night markets in Chaingmai, Thailand. Many of the stalls displayed pencil and charcoal drawings which were exquisitely executed, yet lacked any emotive expression whatsoever. They were accurate studies, devoid of any feeling or life. They hung like dead fish on the stall walls. Many tourists passing by marveled at their skill and execution, but the work did not cause them to pause, to contemplate what the artist was communicating. The works were actually disturbing in their own way, due to their being so soulless. For this reason, I do not believe that all artwork has the capacity to express emotion. Emotion, is rather, conveyed through the will and interaction of the artist with the subject, the media, and the desired emotive content. If the artwork is merely a repetitive exercise that is copied automaton, it will lack depth, and the power to communicate.

When considering expressive mark making and lines, I never considered that I did not need to use my hands to complete the exercise. The artwork Arabesque by Julie Brixey-Williams, looks intriguingly dynamic and integrative in the use of the dancers's feet and hands in manipulating the charcoal (Brixey-Williams, 2015). The write-up on the Saatchi Art website discusses her interest in 'the two-way relationship that the body shares with space (Saatchi Art, 2015)’. Brixey-Williams’s emphasis on the movement of the body around the canvas, as the focus of the art-making, reminds me of watching Jackson Pollock dance around his huge canvases, dripping his enigmatic, spider-webs of paint.

On the Saatchi Art site, I came across the artwork Book 1 #27 by Heather Goodwind. This work is cloyingly demanding in its intense black (Goodwind, 2015) It creates the sensation that the person is demanding through the inclusion of the words ‘love me today’, juxtaposed with the intense dark form in the center of the page. It is powerful and yet threatening, making me want to reject the request. In my opinion, this artwork has more of a feeling of "anger" or "depression" than the scrawled words ‘love me today’ suggest. Maybe that is what makes it noticeable, disturbing, and poignant.

In researching Heather Goodwind’s work further I read her curated notes which said the following: ‘drawings represent a constant outpouring of singular impressions: clearly isolated images that capture flashes of emotion, changes in perception or moments of recognition (Goodwind, 2015).’ From this comment, it is evident that she definitely supports the idea that artworks can capture emotions, perceptions, and moments of cognition.

Fig.1. Drawing, 1915

Georgia O'Keeffe is one of my favorite painters. Until today, I did not realize that she also created noteworthy charcoal sketches. In fact, from the write up I read at Art Experts, her treasure trove of drawers of 'literally hundreds of sketches and watercolors' were only discovered on the closing of her estate (Art Experts, 2015). I have always loved the natural, earthy appeal of charcoal. The charcoal sketch Drawing,1915 stands out for me as it has a combination of growing forms, contained within a confining regimented zigzag form (O'Keeffe, 1915). It gives the idea of something kept secret and cloistered. It creates the sense of protection and motherly brooding. It seems appropriate when considering that her artworks remained a secret, hidden from the public eye during her lifetime.

To me, her charcoal studies have an emotive force that is sometimes lacking in her close-up studies of flowers and natural forms. These works speak beyond the subjectivity of color and recognizable subject matter.

In contrast to the more organic shapes of the previous three artists, I found the work Composition pour carres by Dominique Lutringer tight and stifling (Lutringer, 2015). The regimented grid of boxes, with their strict uniform contours, creates a feeling of being contained and hemmed in. This is emphasized by the fact that the boxes are treated in varying ways. The contrast between the dark shapes and the lighter treatment of some of the squares, creates a tension. I sense that the shapes which do not conform desire to escape the confounds of their configuration.

As I am now itching to do something creative of my own, I will leave this research point. I know that my own artwork has often come across as being rather cerebral, lacking in emotive power. This is an area that I want to explore and to seek to develop in my art making.


Works Cited

Art Experts, 2015. Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986). [Online]
Available at: http://artexpertswebsite.com
[Accessed 8 April 2015].

Brixey-Williams, J., 2015. Arabesque. [Charcoal Drawing] (Saatchi Art).
http://www.saatchiart.com
[Accessed 18 April 2015].

Goodwind, H., 2015. Book 1 #27. [Graphic] (Saatchi Art).
http://www.saatchiart.com
[Accessed 18 April 2015].

Lutringer, D., 2015. Composition pour carres. [Ballpoint Pen] (Saatchi Art). Available at: http://www.saatchiart.com
[Accessed 18 April 2015].

Saatchi Art, 2015. Julie Brixey-Williams. [Online]
Available at: http://www.saatchiart.com/account/profile/91093
[Accessed 18 April 2015].

Illustration

Figure. 1. O'Keeffe, G., 1915. [Charcoal]. Available online at: http://artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/okeeffe.php

[Accessed 18 April 2015].

 

   

Part 1: Feeling, memory and imagination

Exercise 1: Expressive lines and marks  

I remember reading a similar drawing exercise in an art textbook years ago. Ever since then I have used this exploratory activity to expand my students' experience of the expressive power of mark making and media. The power of this exercise was once again brought back to me as I re-experienced emotions and then tried to impact the A4 paper with abstract evidence of these emotions. Where this exercise has extended me is in the fact that I had to find four different ways of expressing the same emotion, using differing media. 

Anger - The emotions that I evoked in order to express anger were so intense that my flimsy paper ripped from its taped moorings. The charcoal and conté crumbled in my hand, shattering across the countertop, and the inked stick gouged through the paper. After each panel, I found myself chuckling nervously. The intensity of the emotion was rather startling and seemingly out of place in what had been a restful day, without events to evoke the anger. Each image uses a heavy, unrestrained explosion of pure media. Jagged abrupt movements explode or spiral from a centrally located point. Adrenaline, power, uninhibited, potentially destructive and explosive are words which I associate with this experience.



Anger

Calm - Being fairly frenetic in nature calm is a real discipline for me. The forceful act of causing myself to still, allowing my breathing to regulate and my jangled nerves to de-stress. My marking making shows this act of slowing down and settling as my lines show an incline to the left and then slowly sink as they move horizontally across the page. I chose landscape for this format as it is more restful than portrait. My conté drawing, due to the heavy nature of the media, shows a rectangular block set in the lower section of the space. I find symmetrical, flat uncluttered shapes to be calming.



Calm

 

Sadness – Today we received the sad news that one of our friends has finally passed on, after a valiant fight against cancer. When sitting down to try to evoke the emotions of joy, I found I was not able to do so. I eventually took stock of what emotions were just beneath the surface today, and I realized that a deep throbbing sadness was lying like a slumbering dragon. While portraying sadness, the different media seemed to speak a different language. The conté evoked a feeling of a deep fissure break through the white of the paper. I loved the way the conté dust settled on the page – this is hard to capture in the photograph. The watercolor pencil gave me a sense of a whirlpool of emotions sucking me into its center – yet its outer limits swirls invasively into the boundaries of the surrounding spaces. It is robbing the energy from all in its vicinity. The charcoal made me think of blobby shapes which start thin at the apex, but become heavy and burdensome as it forms. The ink gave a sense of jagged feelings stabbing down into a melted puddle just above the baseline. Sadness does suck joy and life out of all in its wake.

Sadness

 

Joy – Joy is deeper seated a longer lasting than happiness. It leaves a bubbling sense of hope and vitality. It invigorates one, lending its expression to the flourishes of dance. It delights, twists and spirals upward and outward. It is infectious, evident to all.



Joy
 

Depression - I remember a time of extreme fatigue, which caused me to slip into a depressive state. At that time I completed this drawing in my sketchbook. It has some of the feelings of intense anger, but implodes in on itself. This is the drawing on the left.

I can't remember what the drawing on the right connected to, but it has the lines and feeling of the explosion of life, of renewed power and energy.





Sketchbook 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

I remember the day that I had my idea of what a line was totally blown apart by the idea that there are no "lines" in nature, only perceived lines. All perceived lines are actually three dimensional in nature. Today also expanded my idea of drawing with the words found in the Drawing 1 course manual, "... drawing might also involve a collection of virtual or temporary stains, smudges and trails within an everyday spatial environment." (Khatir, 2014, p. 16) I look forward to the chance to expand my experience and involvement in drawing through this Level 1 course.

Exercise 1

My first experiment was to show that lipstick drawn on a window creates two different types of smudges. The smudge caused by the fatty smear of lipstick, became partly obliterated by the streaks of toothpaste running through it. With the sun streaming through the window, it caste poltergeist-like shadows onto the kitchen floor. This made me think of how temporal the "drawing" of shadows is. The shadow appears to have little correlations to the drawing on the glass.

Lipstick drawn on the kitchen window and then smeared with toothpaste.

Ethereal 'writing' cast by the shadows created by the lipstick.

 

After making a cup of tea, I played with the trails that a teabag can make across the counter. Unfortunately the marks were so light that it would not have photographed well, so I then created trails on a piece of A4.

Teabag traces. I love the triangular shape of the prints created.

 

I then looked around my house for evidence of temporal trails which by their prevalence over a long period of time have become permanent records. I spotted the rust trail in our bathroom under the main shut-off tap and the cracks in the tiles which show the shifting of the clay soil on which our house is built.

 

Rust strains caused over time.

Diagonal crack caused by the earth's shifting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, we visited Gumvie, the largest stilt village in Africa. The wake of the boats left a temporal trail, which soon disappeared without a trace.

Wake of the boat leaves a temporary trace.