Part 3: Viewpoint

Exercise details:

In this exercise I'm choosing the theme of workshop.  In particular the theme of my particular "workshop" is my garden shed.  It is a working place for me and my garden, and it feels like a natural choice for this assignment.  I've grabbed some of my common tools that I use for my garden work for the still life.

Exploring with photos:

I took a variety of pictures of the still life at different angles.  I then spent some time cropping down digitally and experimenting/refining the framing and composition.  For each picture I created an alternative with colour and filter effects applied in Photoshop.  I was going to present all of them in sequence on this blog page but I felt that would look rather dull, so instead I thought it more interesting to put them together into a messy composition:

I found those images where the objects are at a diagonal had more energy, whilst those pictures where the objects are horizontally positioned created a calmer and "flatter" feel.    

Overall, this part of the exercise made me consider a different aspect of composition, i.e. experimenting with the starting viewpoint. I understand the key point that it is best to move around and consider different views and angles of a given scene.  I think it is important not to settle on the first viewpoint. The use of a digital camera makes exploring a range of compositions/viewpoints, quick, easy and immediate.  An obvious, but profound, point comes to mind as a conclusion - physically moving around is all part of achieving a good composition.

The drawings

Drawing 1

I didn't feel particularly inspired by the initial thought of still life drawing (still feeling the echoes of many still lives from Drawing1 module). So I thought I would take the opportunity to try to be a little more experimental in my approach to the drawings.

First of all I wanted to try out my new Tombow pens and attempt a sketchy watercolour look.  These pens are quite fun to use. The layers of brushed tone give a quick and easy watercolour style. They ink is quite easy to blend:

I like that the image has strong verticals. It makes the mundane scene of garden tools seem somehow more exciting and active.  A little bit of diagonal also seems to add to the energy and movement. This drawing could be used to illustrate a "very active" gardener, working at a good pace!  This drawing does not represent a sleepy Sunday afternoon garden moment.

Drawing 2

For the next drawing I want to achieve haphazard and loose lines; only roughly and approximately defining the form and shape of the objects.  I decided to hold a fineliner loosely clutched in my hand (so that the control was limited) and then roughly draw outlines without precision. But the important thing for me was to keep the line flowing and not pull the pen off the page.  The line had to be haphazard.  I wanted to have a combination of lack of control and rarely bringing the pen off the page.   

After drawing just the lines, I liked the outcome. But it suffered from a lack of depth and a feel of three dimensions.   This was particularly notable with the lines of the secateurs over the trowel.  The object on top literally did not seem like one object on top of another.  Therefore, tone was necessary to achieve a more believable scene of objects in a three dimensional space.  For the tone I roughly sketched in some graphite with the edge of graphite stick.  Again, making sure that I didn't have too much control:

I like the final image. I like the fact that it only roughly defines the objects, yet the objects are still individually recognisable.  I think a combination of ink and graphite can sometimes make poor combinations, but in this case, it suits.  Perhaps giving a 'dirty' and 'earthy' look to the scene/objects?

I've found a satisfaction in this style of drawing, and I'm keen to experiment with it for some future illustrations.

Drawing 3

For the next drawing, I went digital. Using Adobe Sketch on iPad. I feel determined to build up my skills and approaches in digital sketching because I think it will give me more scope as an illustrator. 

The drawing below was direct from life, drawing freehand on the iPad with a stylus:

My fascination in this drawing was rendering the small marks, lines and scratches in the metal.