Self-directed learning

In this session on the 12th November we were able to go back and review our previous work and pick one of these that we found unsure about or didn't understand as much as the other techniques. I choose to review chalk pastels, as I found it quite hard to mix colours and use this material. When I was thinking of things to draw I thought it would be good to draw a type of fruit as they are very vibrant in colour and I could use the chalk pastels to show this. so I went onto the internet and found some images such as peaches, pears and apples. I chose to draw a peach which had been cut in half so you were able to see the stone inside of it. I thought this would look really effective once I had used to chalk pastels on it.

I also didn't want to draw a pear or apple as I had already drawn these types of fruit in other techniques. At the start of the session I decided to draw the image out first I did this because I thought I would get a more accurate shape and size to my drawing which I did. I also decided to draw it landscape because I felt more comfortable drawing this way and also I thought I would have more room then I would have done if I drew it portrait.

Materials I used during this session were a 2B pencil, chalk pastels and cartridge paper. The technique used throughout this session was scale as I needed to change the size of the peach from the size it was on the paper (A4) to a larger size and scale to fit my paper. I really enjoyed this lesson because we were able to choose what image we had to draw from and also the material we felt we needed more time to practise and work on. By choosing to use chalk pastel in this session and choosing an image I found interesting and that I wanted to draw I was able to progress and get better from the last time using chalk pastels. I'm glad I choose this material to use because now I feel confident and feel like I could draw pretty much anything and use this material next time, which is good because the purpose of this lesson was for me progress.

Areas of my work I think worked well would be the size and shape of the image. I think I did a good job making the image look bigger and making it bigger to fit my page and not just draw it the same size as my printed out image. Also I think I managed to blend the colours together well to make the drawing look quite realistic and similar to the actual printed out image of the peach. 
Areas of my work I think could be improved would by the use of the chalk pastels. The centre of my drawing of the peach has the stone in, I found it hard using my chalk pastels to get the dark colours and the flecks of light throughout it. If I was to try and improve this I would research about this material more to find out what the right way to use this successfully and then either amend my work or re-draw the same image or something else and use my research in this to make this drawing look realistic and like the printed out image I have.

As this is already a development for my green bottle drawing which I used chalk pastels for I am going to do a further development for this material. In the areas of my work I think could have been improved I suggested for me to research this material (chalk pastels) to find out the right way to use them so when I re-draw the peach or another image I can use this to make my drawing look more realistic and this would then show my understanding for this specific material. This could lead me to then progressing further and finding an object at home to try this material on, this would allow me to show my understanding of how to use it effectively.    

Oil Painting

In this session on the 5th of November we were asked to use oil paint to draw the still life that we were presented with. Materials used during this session include; oil paint, hog hair brushes, low odour solvent and cartridge paper. Techniques that were also used throughout this session were painting and perspective. At the start of the lesson we were shown by Chris how to use the oil paint as I was one of many that hadn't used this material before and were unsure of have to use it and what its qualities were like. I had learnt that we shouldn't use water to clean the brushes as the oil in the paint doesn't mix with the water causing it to separate and that means its unusable. After getting a demonstration of how to use the paint effectively, we went off and started to paint the background colour before we started painting the still life. Using the hog hair brushes we painted our page liberally with the brown paint that we had mixed ourselves. After allowing to dry we then started painting the still life, I had decided to paint it straight away and not use pencil as it would be hard to erase the mistakes where as if I make a mistake with the paint I could use the rag and wipe the paint away.

Throughout the session I found it quite hard using the paint and understanding how it mixed and applied, so I would definitely practise at home to improve my skills and understanding of the material. Areas of my work that i think worked well would be use of the hog hair brushes. I think that I applied the paint well as it was my first time and I made sure the paint was the right consistency when applying the background colour, as if it had any texture to it then this would change the outcome of what I painted onto it. Areas of my work I think didn't work well would have been the accuracy of the shape. I think this because I found it hard trying to keep the shape of the painting to an accurate size and to what it was meant to look like.
To extend my skills I will practise at home using items that I can find around the house and arrange them which then will able me to extend my skills with this material. I could also look at what I have drawn in the past and recreate that but with the different material.  

Painting fruit

In this session on the 22nd of October we were asked to draw and paint a still life of a composition of fruit. Formal elements that were used include; shape and colour. Materials I used during this session were a 2H pencil, Acrylic paint, hog hair brushes, cartridge paper and also a thinner paper when we did our timed sketches at the start of the session. Techniques that I used during this session were timed sketches, perspective, scale and painting. At the starts of the lesson we were asked to draw 3 timed sketches; 3 minutes, 1 minute and 30 seconds, of the fruit. We made sure that these 3 drawings were kept to the top half of the page as further into the session we needed the bottom half of the paper for something else. We later on found out that we were using charcoal again but this time just black charcoal, and this is why we had to keep the bottom half of the paper clear as this is where we had planned to draw it. We didn't get to use a drawing pencil to map out the shape as we were only allowed to use the charcoal. We used the charcoal to show the darker areas within the composition which was hard as I wasn't allowed to use a pencil before I felt like I was drawing free-hand and this is why the shape of my fruit isn't very accurate as it could be.

Areas of my work that I think worked well would be the use of the charcoal showing the darker areas. Since my last time using charcoal I think I have definitely improved and think the drawing is fairly accurate as I hadn't used a pencil before hand, I had used charcoal first.
Areas of my work that I think needs improving would be the shape of the fruit and the accuracy of them. I would need to practise more at home or in my free's drawing with only charcoal and practising different shapes and still life compositions.
to extend my skills I will practise more with charcoal and using it to draw more still life compositions and other objects to push me to improve and and get used to using this material
Also in this session on the 22nd of October we were then asked to draw the still life again and this time use the acrylic paints. I chose to use the paper landscape because it allowed me to draw the fruit more accurately and I had more space. After drawing the fruit accurately we went on to choosing our paints and carefully mixing them to the right shade we needed for each particular fruit. This was a very time consuming process as the colour had to be accurate and had to be the same shade as the fruit we were painting to make it look realistic.

As you can see from the picture of my work above I had only managed to finish my apple to how i wanted it. I never managed to finish any of the other fruit as I ran out of time in the session. This would be one of my improvements for next time as I would make sure that I manage my time correctly making sure that I have enough time to finish my work in the lesson. Another improvement would be the accuracy of my painting, I will definitely be working on my painting skills as I'm new to it and this is why the painting on my work isn't at a very high standard. Parts of my work that worked well would be the shape and accuracy of the fruit I had drawn. Also the scale and size of my drawing, I think I used the space on my page wisely and appropriately and the size of my drawing is the right size as you can see what they are meant to be and there isn't any unnecessary space left on the page. To extend my skills I will practise at home using other still life objects to improve my technique of using acrylic paints.

Colour Wheel

In this session on the 16th of October, we looked into the colour wheel and all about mixing colours to produce primary, secondary and tertiary shades. Some of the formal elements we used in the lesson include; colour and tone. Materials that were used during this session were Gouche paint, sable brushes and cartridge paper. In this case gouche paint was more ideal for what we were doing as it allows me to build up a stronger colour. I didn't, as such, use any techniques during this lesson but I did learn how to look at the colours and determine what shades they were and what made them.

     

















Areas of my work I think worked well would be the understanding of the primary and secondary colours and what they were made up of. I also think that my understanding of shades and tones within the colours and showing them physically.
Areas of my work I think I would need to improve on would be the understanding of the tertiary colours. I don't' really understand them so would need to do some research on the tertiary colours for me to build an understanding of them and how to remember them. As I just mentioned I would extend my skills further by researching and learning about the tertiary colours and what they are made up of. I could also work with others in my group and either recreate the colour wheel together allowing us to help each other so we all understand it. Or finally I could speak to my tutor about colour wheel and everything about it. This would hopefully allow me to understand them and be able to learn more about them and use them in the future.  

Chalk Pastels

In this session on the 8th October, we had the challenge of drawing an arrangement of bottles and had the chance to use chalk pastels which were new to me as I had never used them before. materials i used during this session were, a 2B pencil, chalk pastels, and cartridge paper. Techniques I used during this session include; times sketch,perspective, ellipse and positive and negative space. In this lesson I had learnt about ellipse, and using a grid method to create a perfect ellipse at the top of the bottles that we were drawing.

At the start of this session we were asked to do a timed sketch of the bottles, lasting for 3 minutes, 1 minute and 30 seconds. Unfortunately I don't have an picture of what I had done but I thought I did well under pressure and within the time limit. In all of my timed drawings I managed to include all the bottles and just about start the detailing. certain areas of my work that could have been improved would be the proportion of my drawings. I found that when we started with our 3 minute sketches I drew it quite big so didn't have much room for the other 2 timed drawings. So if in our next session we are asked to do timed sketches again I will always think about spacing on my page and to make sure that I always have enough space when I am drawing.

After this exercise we then went onto drawing the arrangement of bottles but we had to use purple sugar paper, which was new to me as I hadn't used it before or even drawn on it. After setting up, I decided to draw the outline of my bottles with pencil before using the pastels as I think I would be able to get my drawing a lot more accurate and be able to rub away any mistakes that I would make. Other people in the group didn't use pencil to map out the outline but I decided to do this first. Materials used for this activity were sugar paper and chalk pastels. Techniques I used during this session were perspective, ellipse and pos + neg space.

  


















Areas of my work I think worked well would be the accuracy of my drawings. I think that the scale and size of my drawings are very accurate and realistic.Even though it did take me most of the time we had for this excise just to draw the outline of the bottles, I wanted the shape of them to be as accurate as possible before using the chalk pastels as otherwise I wouldn't be happy with it as it wouldn't look good and it be drawn to the best of my ability. I also really like the way my chalk pastels shading has turned out. As it was my first time every using this material I think I used to correctly as it made my drawing look 3D.
Areas of my work I think could be improved would be the time frame in which i had to draw the image. I think I could work more on my time management as I used most of my time drawing the outline of the bottles so didn't have time to finish or add more detail and tone into my green bottle as much as I would have wanted to. Because I was pushed for time I felt like I had to try and use some of the chalk pastels on my work. This meant that I didn't manage to draw all of the bottles that were in the arrangement. So there was only a certain amount of detailing I could get into my whole drawing.

To extend my skills I would try and find an object/s at home or off the internet and practise this technique and to also find out the best ways of using this material to make it look effective and to the best of my ability.

Extension

As I said above I was going to either find and image off the internet or at home and research the best possible ways of using this material to make my drawings looks effective and realistic. So this is what I did. I decided to use an image of a peach as I thought my drawing would look really effective when using the chalk pastels with the different colours running through the peach.










This was the image I decided to use as it was clear and I thought it was good if I pushed myself as it was in 2 halves. I chose to draw the image first with a 2B pencil because it meant the overall shape and size of my drawing would be more accurate. After doing this I then went onto using the chalk pastels to show light and dark tones shown throughout the peach using different shades of orange and red. I found the stone in the middle of the peach quite hard to do as I couldn't make it look realistic like the actual printed out image. I didn't know how hard to press on with the black pastel, as I was weary about using it as I knew that it was hard to get black off an image! Overall I think my extension has shown that I've improved and that was the whole point of doing and extension, to show my progression with this material.      
       

Life drawing of stools

In this session on the 1st October we were asked to draw another life drawing. This included a stool, chair, 2 easels and 2 lamps which were all interwined together. Materials used in this session were a 2B pencil and cartridge paper. Techniques I used during this session were shaded drawing and positive and negative space. We weren't asked to draw the objects we were asked to look for positive and negative space within the still life. By drawing this, It meant that when shaded in it would show the image. By also shading in the background it would mean that the image would appear as you carry on shading the negative spaces.

Areas of my work I think worked well was the bottom of my chair. Because I drew the negative spaces in the still life it meant that as I carried in drawing the image started to come to life and actually look like something. I think the size is right and is in proportion. 

Areas of my work I think could be improved would be the top of my drawing. This is because I don't think it matches the bottom half of my drawing and isn't very proportional or drawn to scale. 

To extend my skills I will change the size of the top of my drawing by re-drawing it making sure that the size of the shapes are accurate and that it is drawn to scale and everything is equal. 

Boxes

In this session on the 24th September we were asked to draw 2 images of squares that were positioned differently on the page. Materials used during this lesson were; a 2B pencil and cartridge paper. At the start of the lesson we were asked to use the technique scale to copy 2 images of squares off of a peice of paper. The first peice we were able to pin to our easels and copy by using our pencils and fingers to map out the length and angle of the shape. Where as our second peice of paper had to stay in the floor making it harder to use scaling as it was further away from our eyesight and harder to map onto the page. 

Techniques used during this session were; scale drawing and tonal study. Areas of my work that I think worked well are the proportion of the squares I had drawn. I think this because they are all the same size and look realistic. This also means that the scale is quite accurate as they are all the same and the scale of them is correct. 

Areas of my work that could be improved would be the accuracy of the lines and how the lines are drawn. I need to concentrate more when drawing them to make sure they are straighter this would make my drawing more accurate. 

To extend my skills I will look at objects at home and try and relate these things to techniques I have tried in class and either recreate or practice this. By doing this will make me more familiar to the technique and allow me to progress and get better. 

In this session on the 24th September we were then asked to draw a composition of boxes. Materials used during this session include a 2B pencil and cartridge paper. Techniques used were; shading, scale and perspective. There were 4 boxes that were positioned in different ways (lay down, slanted etc) in the centre of the room. We then had to draw the objects using our technique of measuring with our pencils to create an accurate scale.

Areas of my work I think worked well would be the accurate scale of my drawings this is because the size and scale of each box is the same size and fits on the page.

Areas of my work that could be improved are the tonal qualities. I think I need to work in the time on my drawing as it doesn't really show much skill. If I was to finish this or add more I think that, that would definitely improve it.

To extend my skills I would finish this piece of work by working on the tone throughout and practicing on other drawings using tone so I improve.