Drawing Skills : Learning Log : Assignment 3 - Drawing Outdoors

PART 3 : DRAWING OUTDOORS

General Update

This section has had its ups and downs.

It took some time for me to get into the swing of things. I had a bit of a wobble in the second quarter of this year when my son’s health deteriorated again. We were back to the worry and the run of clinics and appointments and I had neither the time nor the heart for much else. Fortunately the break over the Summer did him good, he is now in much better form and when he’s happy, I’m happy.

The drawing course I applied for didn’t work out as planned: only 3 people applied for the Beginner’s course so it was cancelled. Instead we were offered places on the intermediate course – which I took, but this was very different to what I expected. There weren’t classes as such, instead people worked away individually on whatever pieces they wanted to do and the tutor would come around and give pointers. There was a very pleasant atmosphere in the class  and the nights flew,  but I still feel very much at a loss for the basics.

On the plus side, I leant how to use coloured pencils and I really enjoyed working in these in the Landscape Drawing project. I also tried wax pastels – with less success.

On the down side, we were of necessity working from photos, and I tended to revert to drawing the objects rather than assessing the overall composition, light and shade etc. I had problems with this when I set into drawing from life for my exercises.

Once I did settle back in, I really enjoyed the drawing exercises and will be getting a voucher towards drawing lessons (yet to be tracked down) for my Christmas present.

Assignment Three

In Assessment Submission

I’m a bit disappointed with how this went. I was very happy with the earlier landscape drawings I had done in coloured pencil and thought I’d be able to put in a really good piece for this.

In Assessment Submission

Composition: I had a few options but was most attracted to the view of the shed with some trees and a house in the background. I did a few preliminary drawings and then decided to put the focus on the shed  with two different trees looming behind..
I think this may have been a mistake: when I was pulling the material together to send off, I felt a composition that included the house and trees would have been stronger. I’m going to try this out over the Christmas and see how it goes.

In Assessment Submission

Media: I experimented with a few options: coloured pencil, pen and watercolours ( first time using these). I really liked the drawing I did in pen and watercolour and decided to use these for the final drawing, with some pencil layered in.

I’m happy with the depth of tone I achieved, but think the drawing feels a bit stilted.

Preparation:

 I’m doing a number of preliminary sketches, but not sure if I’m approaching them correctly…by the time I get to the final drawing I seem to have lost a lot of enegy and enthusiasm for the subject and the drawing gets much blander. Need help with this.

Project   Landscape Drawing.

I found these exercises difficult to begin with – it was hard to know what to focus on and how much detail to include.

Simplifying and selecting :For the sketchbook walks I tried to pick a focal point or area of interest and work around that- and this was really at the expense of noticing recurring shapes, patterns and textures.

These came more to the fore in the 360 studies where I had to use shape and tone to evoke the landscape in the allotted 15 minutes. I really enjoyed these and was amazed by the difference in aspect for each one.

Sense of distance and form: I tried to create this by having more detail and shading in items on the foreground, with this becoming more toned down for items in the middleground and the background quite indistinct.

Plotting space through composition and structure. I loved this exercise and worked through some of it in the first few evening classes I took.

In Assessment Submission

My first attempt was based on a photo I had taken of  run-down stables. I probably put too much emphasis on the stables as the focal point and I didn’t make enough of a distinction between the different areas.

In Assessment Submission

My second attempt was based on a photo from a calendar which I thought I could use. I put emphasis on detail, form and texture to make the foreground come forward and reduced the extent of these as I went farther back. The sense of distance was heightened by a lane that disappeared into the middle ground. I really enjoyed how the detailed work, which was a mass of marks up close, was so impactful  when viewed at arms length.

Light and shade: I got better at using this I went along: the sketchbook walk shows little variation in light and shade, but by the plotting space exercises I was using light and shade to emphasize form and texture and give a sense of distance.
I find it easier to distinguish light and shade when working from the photos...much harder to do when faced with the landscape itself...hope this will improve n time.

Other : I enjoyed using the eraser to draw clouds though it’s not a technique I used in my later exercises as the media I used didn’t lend themselves to it.

Project   Perspective.

I went into this with some trepidation - deservedly so as it transpired.

Problems in execution: While I felt I understood the logic of the concepts, I came a cropper with the practicalities.

In the parallel perspective exercises I kept pitching the horizon line too low and the angles from the ceiling down weren’t acute enough.

I really struggled with angular perspective : again I had difficulty with the horizon line and couldn’t establish where the vanishing points should be. My angles were off and though I knew they looked wrong, I didn’t know how to correct them.

Use of a ruler :  I can see how using a ruler might help but that assumes your angles are correct in the first place.

I also found out my verticals weren’t straight, so my buildings were toppling. I had to start using a ruler to get these right but the drawings were more stilted / like tech drawing as a result.

Project   Townscapes.

I enjoyed these once I got over the discomfort of being out and about sketching, though due to the time of year I worked mainly from the car.

Study of Townscape using line.

I did this in Macroom an old market town near where I live. The town is hilly with a number of narrow streets and old shop fronts. I chose a view looking down from a side street onto the main street. I did a first sketch in pencil and then a further drawing in pen. The pen drawing was a disaster…I was trying to show the texture and shadows on the buildings in the foreground and completely overworked it, so that there is little or no tonal contrast. I’ll need to get help in using pen as a drawing medium. Having looked up some drawing manuals I think I might have been better using pen and wash.

Sketchbook of Townscape Drawings

I took 2 runs at this in two different locations. The first time I had difficulty getting decent preliminary sketches that I could use.

Prelimimary sketches: I found these really helpful in terms of helping me to (i)hone in on what it was that I wanted to convey about the buildings (ii) identify the main areas of light and shade - a weak area of mine.I worked mainly from these but also had taken photographs in case I needed further detail.

Use of limited colour palette:

I’m not sure I did this correctly. I used the black and white to emphasis the features and brickwork of the old building in the foreground while the buildings in the background had shading but very little detail. of the

A different approach: I made two attempts at this.. The first time I had difficulty getting decent preliminary sketches that I could use. On the second run, I took a good bit of time looking at the building from a number of vantage points before starting sketching. I may have plumped too quickly for the viewpoint I chose, but I liked the contrast of the old and the new and how the buildings receded into the distance. I cheated here a bit because the lower part of the new buildings is blocked by a hoarding  whereas I drew in a path that leads away…not sure how correct this is compositionally.

Scale of buildings:

I think I got the scale fairly right but I don’t think it’s clear that the new buildings are a separate block behind and across the road from the old building.

Colour and atmosphere:

I this the drawings feel quite different  but both lack colour and atmosphere. I should probably have included some people in the Macroom sketch, given that it’s a market town. Not sure what I could convey about Old Quarter in Ballincollig, given it’s location on a ring road and the fact that most of the apartment blocks are unoccupied.

Drawing Statues

I drew a statue from a local church focusing on it and its context. The statue seems to loom out at you from the darkness of the church walls and is quite eerie.

There’s a beautiful bronze statue by Don Cronin of a bull in Macroom which I want to draw at some stage

Project   Drawing Trees.      

I love trees in all their different shapes and forms but found there is a world of difference in appreciating them and being able to do them justice.

Number of tree types:  I’ve drawn 6 types in these exercises with varying degrees of success ( two evergreen, silver birch, apple tree, beeches, a shrub  and a dead ash) and a further 2 in assignment 3. I’ve found I’m now much more aware of the form and tones of the different trees I see along the way.

Techniques to distinguish types :  generally outline, and thrust and tone of trunk and main branches and different marks and shading to mimic how the foliage is arranged – though context gives some information too. Given that it’s mid winter, many of the trees are bare, so a lot of focus went on their silhouettes. I’ll have to draw many of them again in Summer.

Conveying mass of foliage: it’s mid-winter, so I had to seek out some evergreens to do the foliage and outline exercises. I used a combination of mark making, repetitive shapes and light and shade to convey the mass of foliage.

Handling light on trees : I used highlights and shadow to depict strong light falling on the trees in the final assignment.

Selecting and simplifying: I think I went wrong by at first trying to draw the trees branch by branch with very stilted and disappointing results.

I left the exercises and came back to them fresh, this time trying to capture the feel of the tree and this worked much better.

TUTOR REPORT