Part 4 Project 1 exercise 1 Drawing fabric using line and tone

Before commencing this exercise, I consulted the exercise called A Single Line in Drawing Projects. (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014) When executing my line drawings, I tried to follow this approach to try to created felt lines. My initial drawing was created with a 6B pencil and the subsequent one with a compressed charcoal pencil.

6 B Pencil sketch. A3 size.

Charcoal Line Sketch. A3 Size.

For the tonal study, I chose to use black ink with the odd wash of thinned down white acrylic.

Tonal Ink study of fabric folds. A2 size.

For my 5-minute studies, I gridded off a sheet of A2 size paper into 12 boxes. I know the exercise called for only 8, but I felt like taking my explorations further. I started rather tentatively in the top right-hand corner and worked towards the left. Slowly as I progressed I found myself loosening up so that by the time I was working on the bottom squares I felt energized and far more capable of expressive lines and tones.

Five minute studies of fabric. Mixed media. Size A2.

An unexpected experimentation, that I actually like, happened in the row second from the bottom, in the center. I decided that the black ink applied in a streaky fashion mimics folds. So I laid a few strokes down to fill the box, and then worked white water-color crayon on top of its. It is an approach which is different from my usual style. I then tried to use the same concept, but to drag the ink in the form of the fabric. This can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner. I then worked a dark colored pencil over the shadows. I also like the effect of having graphite mixed with the odd stroke of watercolor marker, which is then washed with directional strokes of water to soften the marker strokes.

Work Cited
Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014. Drawing Projects an exploration of the language of drawing. London: Black Dog Pulbishing.