Part 1 Exercise 2 Observing shadow using blocks of tone

One of my biggest frustrations at present is my lack of supplies. I wanted to sign up for the Drawing 1 course last August. Just before I could do so, my daughter had a medical emergency which resulted in her having numerous operations, four days in ICU and almost a month in hospital. As the medical insurance she was on was an international medical insurance, which did not pay anything until four months after her expenses, we soon depleted our savings. So once she was out of hospital, and I was getting ready to return to Benin, I really could not afford to buy supplies. I eventually went into an art store and bought what I thought might be the basics of what I would need, for the least amount of money. Now I am sitting in Benin, where supplies are hard to come by, without all of the possibilities I know would aid my process.

However, I did put in an order with Amazon, which I will be able to receive when I am back in South Africa this June. One of the books I ordered was Drawing Projects an exploration of the language of drawing by Mick Maslen and Jack Southern. I merely went through the suggested reading list and picked a book which looked helpful, and still in my budget range. I was so delighted to read the book report by Rebecca Fairley as she gave this book a glowing report. (Fairley 2015) I am looking forward to what this book has to teach me.

For this exercise, I chose to draw some twisted seedpods my husband picked up during our walk to school. I have always loved natural objects and these seedpods have such interesting markings and form.

Seedpods with lighting from the lamp slightly above

I found the beginning part of this exercise frustrating; as I do not have good quality, A1 sized paper. The largest paper I could find was the thin Post-it-note Poster paper I use in my classroom. It does not have a significant tooth, so the conté and charcoal would not grip properly to the surface. In frustration, I eventually got ahold of a side of a cardboard box and started drawing on that. This worked somewhat better, although it does not look too glamorous.

Initial sketch

Second conté and charcoal sketch

Desperation rules - cardboard to the rescue

As I became more engrossed in this activity, I became more aware of the amazing shadows that the seedpods cast onto the shiny dark table they were placed on. The shadows themselves were not uniform, but indicated the patterns created by the thinned areas where seeds used to be. It was very hard in the drawing to indicate that my shading of these areas were in fact shadows, as they were so dark compared to the lighter tones of the seedpods, making them appear more like the objects than the seedpods. 

Final sketch

Detail

Further cross-section of detail

Because of my desire to explore the subtleties of the tonal values, I chose for my final exercise to go back to the Post-it-note poster paper and try using a combination of my darkest drawing pencil, which is a water-color black pencil, and a charcoal pencil. This resulted in my being able to control the values and details of the shading to a greater degree. I feel that this drawing at least portrayed some of the amazing intricacies of the shadows formed by these seedpods.

When photographing the details of this final sketch, I realized how powerful the drawing could be as an abstract. with the focus zoomed into the main interplay of seedpods and shadows. This has potential to develop into a further project some time.

When looking at the four sketches as a set. The one executed on the cardboard box is definitely the most expressive. Here I used white conté to indicate the highlights and tried to use the natural color of the box as one of the mid-range tones. However, the final drawing does explore the intricacies better. I do not like the composition of my final sketch. I think the placement of the seedpods could have been better thought through. But, I do feel that I stretched myself and explored the wonderful range of tones available in this simple collection of seedpods.


Learning Points

• Paper quality really effects the way the charcoal and conte respond to the paper. It is almost impossible to get mid-range tones with shiny paper.
• Shadows are amazingly complex, requiring just as much observation as the object itself.
• Try to keep the lines expressive and the tonal values fresh.
• Try to create a marriage between expression and technical observations.
• Don't pick up a cardboard box drawing with conté and charcoal over a beige carpet.