a few more bee sketches in different media — I’m thinking of trying some of these in stitch (a cross between junko oki’s work and jude hills’ work such as this circle & the final piece in ‘considering weave’ — my own interpretation of it) and also as the fabric manipulation exercises for assignment 3. (to save time, and work on theme practice plus exercises at the same time).
plus some other general sketches — I’m also trying to practice sketching things from my day or local area. some are done in a small notebook whilst out and about.
I still haven’t separated my theme book from regular sketch book — must work on this. it’s just more convenient to put everything into one book..
i think I’ve been improving with some of my sketching.. or rather seeing. I think i’m starting to see things differently – the shapes and lines rather than only the overall shape and outline. still a lot of practice to do, and there’s still plenty of fails, but when i concentrate more on looking and seeing and not the drawing, I end up being happier with the drawings. something to remember going forwards..
another exercise I learned from one of Carla Sonheim’s classes, is to practice seeing shapes — animals and other things, in the cracks and lines and shadows on the footpath and other places. I think this might be a type of pataphysical drawing exercise too.
collating some of them here — most a “imaginary animals” or “blobimals” as it’s fun to draw them, and they seem to be everywhere once you start looking! it’s like finding animals in the clouds.
some I’ve done:
and some shapes I’ve collected and am yet to draw the “blobimals”:
some are obvious, and others less so..
sometimes I don’t have my drawing materials with me so I’ve started making quick drawings on the ipad. collating them here..
some are freehand scribbles / warm up drawings and others I trace photos on different layers — selecting which lines/details to include in the drawing.
I read about the “brushes” ipad app so I’ve been trying it out this weekend. it allows you to draw in layers. so far I’ve been roughly tracing photos from my photos collection to practice and get a feel for drawing lines and objects & people. I know we should do more freehand drawing, but i get quite disheartened that mine don’t look like the original, that I don’t feel like doing any more. with the tracings, i can see the image coming through and it’s teaching me to see the shapes better, and to select which lines and shapes and shadings to include and which to leave out. i think this is half the battle of drawing – deciding what to include and what to discard that still gets your message across. I’m using my finger to draw with and still getting the hang of the app’s brushes too, so even though I’m tracing, it’s still not looking exactly like the original. but hopefully it’s training my hand eye co-ordination a bit (more than not drawing at all). here’s the first attempts.
yesterday, we went to the Piranesi exhibition at the State Library of Victoria. his work was amazing! such fine detail in his etchings and prints. there were around 100 works on display, but i found that I was transfixed by the close-up detail of his mark making in the works. when he was younger, the prints were lighter and later in his life he ran his own printmaking business and developed darker, denser prints of imaginative buildings, street scenes and maps. the exhibition included his visions of Rome etchings. most of the buildings did not actually exist outside his mind and works — they are imaginary buildings and cities. he showed amazing skill with depth of vision, fine detail in the clouds and architectural designs and showing darkness and light in the images. Giovanni Battista Piranesi lived from 1720-1778. a statement reported by one of his early biographers, via his Met Museum article shows his love for imaginary architecture:
“I need to produce great ideas, and I believe that if I were commissioned to design a new universe, I would be mad enough to undertake it.”
I tried drawing some of the marks in my notebook but found the pen i was using didn’t give me enough variation in the lightness and darkness of the lines.
I bought a copy of the book to look more closely at his lines and marks later. I’m afraid i didn’t notice all of the individual pictures from far away – I was too busy concentrating on a few of them close up. his mark making style was similar for most of his earlier and later works, but the large map that was printed onto the foyer outside the exhibition is of a more modern, draftsman drawing style.
the article in the paper about the exhibition mentioned that most of Piranesi’s works are held by libraries, rather than galleries. this is an interesting comment – perhaps due to his printing background, his works are highly regarded by printed works specialists. architects also study his works.
explorations in textiles, mark making, drawing, sketchbooks, art school & uni art work