I though the still life for yesterday's drawing session was pretty inspiring based on the drawings we saw at the end. The 200 level line exploration I thought went fairly well, although I hope there will be additional efforts in your sketchbooks. Such a deliberate approach is one of the most expedient ways of training the eye to observe accurately, which is a huge benefit to anyone who wants to represent perceived reality. Drawing from close observation eventually prepares us to visualize things that exist only in our imaginations, such as the cloud drawing series I passed out the first day of class. You can clearly see that Brace had a strong visual vocabulary to draw from in her work, she has spent a lot of time looking and drawing.
The value work of the 300 and 400 levels also went well. In our brief discussion, there was a point made about perhaps reducing the scale of the format to insure a more resolved, or finished work by the end of the session. In those cases, it may also be a good plan to try to bring up the composition as a whole rather than piece by piece.
Another point in the discussion had to do with abbreviating. Not saying it's bad, but when the focus is to communicate what you see, there might be too much essential information being filtered out.
So, we'll move on with a new still life next week. Maybe extending it over two classes and using paper worthy of a six hour drawing, I'll see what I have on hand. We'll also take a look at more drawing candidate portfolios, and discuss some series ideas.
Hope the sketchbooks are cooking. Hope your ideas are cooking. See you Monday.
If you don't have a lot of paper I have some from the sample pack from printmaking of Stonehenge paper. :) Lemme know if you need any. It's in my bin in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of extending the still life over 2 days. I have another idea; what if we had several smaller still life areas set up where we could get more up-close and personal with the subjects.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Connie. I have some bristol vellum for the new still life project, no No.2 pencils this time.
ReplyDeleteThis will be a 2-day still life, Shawn. It generally takes me about an hour to get a still life set up, unless it's just a collection of things, but I like to find visual connections, such as last week's abundance of eliptical repitition and pattern. Today I worked on tension. I'm not opposed to multiple still life arrangements, but a little help getting them together would be appreciated.
I found this still life somewhat challenging just because of the fabric and how it is reflected on the other objects. Although with that said, I still like this still life because of the many reflective surfaces. I enjoyed how the fabric was reflected onto the objects and that how the stripes were different tones on each object. Very fun.
ReplyDeleteI would be willing to come in early in the morning and help for a bit. My french class doesn't start till 10 and I could get there about 9. I'm kind of tied up between 10 and class time because we're doing a little study group between classes.
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