This task was about getting practice with drawing greyscales, using pencil and hatching/cross-hatching techniques. The focus should be on a single object’s pattern and texture, drawn on A3 paper size. We were supposed to try to create good contrast, use a variety of different marks, combine different soft and medium grade pencils and hatching stroke directions and fill the paper in an interesting way.
Pineapple
I selected a pineapple for the first attempts, with 2B and 6B pencil, but used only 6B. I was very dissatisfied with the drawing and didn’t enjoy drawing at all. I thought about why this was such a negative experience and I think it’s because the task was too complicated. The object too large and too complex, compared to my skills level. So I got stressed and disheartened because I realized that I’m not able to make a pretty drawing.
It would probably the best if I just slowed down a bit and adapted task complexity to what I’m able to achieve at this point in time. Maybe I would get along better by not drawing an entire object, but just trying to get some tiny detail right. I understand the task to be about pattern and texture and getting the tones right. So for me it would be important to find a personal way how I can learn, rather than trying everything at once, making one dissatisfying drawing after the other and not seeing any progress or learning taking place
I made another try with the pineapple, this time trying to draw a detail of its skin. Again I am entirely dissatisfied with the result. I don’t like this day.
Feeling disheartened
I must have been really disheartened by the pineapple experience. I just couldn’t get my self to give it another try with this exercise. Having to fill an A3 sheet seems just like an additional punishment, whenever I think of a natural object I might draw, because these objects that come to my mind are all so tiny.
I just can’t get over my dislike for this task, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want to drop out of the course because of this, but I just can’t motivate myself to make a drawing that fits the task. I really tried to break it down into smaller steps, like thinking about small objects or only drawing a detail, but there’s simply nothing I’d be interested in drawing of the type ‘natural object’. No interest in drawing the internal structure of a a cauliflower.
A long time ago I have switched to photography when I saw something with interesting structure or detail, and probably this is the reason why. I don’t like detailed drawing. But this won’t help me in getting the coursework done, so I’m actually stuck. Help needed!
Lettuce
I did another two drawings. I wrote to my tutor about my blockage and this in itself seemed to have a kathartic effect, at least I was able to decide on an object and to give it another try. I chose fresh lettuce because the foldings of its leaves looked quite interesting.
But unfortunately, the experience was again very disheartening. I felt extremely incompetent and my drawings are far from demonstrating observational skills. Well actually they demonstrate that I don’t have adequate observational skills.
The big question is: How long will I try on this? In order to learn, I could spend a month at least, with daily practice. Not sure if this is what I’m doing the course for. But at the moment I don’t have the tiniest glimpse of how to approach the topic or how to improve. I think despite my lack of interest, I will stick to the topic until I at least feel that I understand how it’s done.
Still need to work out how I will continue. Probably I will try to do only details (not a whole object) and to enlarge it, hoping that this will permit me to focus on something and to understand how I can accurately represent what I see.
The whole thing is really disheartening. I hope that with practice I will get better, but I’m not sure about it. It feels like a foreign language with neither dictionnary nor grammar nor teacher at hand.
Low morale, continued
I wanted to do another observational study yesterday evening, but I was in trouble because my cat Paula had been refusing food all day. This is related to her illness and it has a devastating effect on my morale, because it makes me realize that her days are ending. I’m so sad and worried about her health that it’s difficult to keep up with other things in my life. By 9 p.m. I had managed to give her some medicine mixed into food, through assisted feeding using a syringe. Thanks to the medication (Prednisolone), an hour later her overall state was much better, and luckily this morning she ate sufficiently. The problem with Prednisolone are its side effects, so I’m trying to find a balance between giving her enough of it to alleviate the symptoms of her illness (like nausea, the reason why she doesn’t eat), but not too much, to avoid the negative side effects. It’s a difficult situation to live with the constant question, when will we arrive at the limit where it would be better to let her go. Sometimes I just can’t help crying, because I’m so helpless and our time together was much too short. She’s my little girl.
So yesterday evening just wasn’t the moment for another lettuce observational study. Luckily the morale is back to a more normal level today, corresponding to Paula’s improvement.
One idea I had how to tackle the problem of my lack of skills was to search the internet for drawing courses oriented towards detailed observation. There don’t seem to be many free resources at first sight, but I found a course description from the University of Hildesheim (Germany) which recommends as course literature a book by Karl Blossfeld and his co-worker Hans-Christian Adam. I found the works by this artist quite inspirational. My reflections are in a separate blog entry for ease of reference later (see More artists: Karl Blossfeldt).
New studio equipment and new inspiration
Inspired by the focus on detail in Karl Blossfeldt’s work and realizing that part of my problems may be related to diminishing eyesight, I did some product search and decided to buy a magnifier lamp. This may appear a bit exaggerated, and I do ask myself whether I will find enough pleasure in detailed observational drawing, but … it might be useful for many other activities as well, because my eyesight problems are not specific to drawing. After some reading around the topic, I chose one with a magnification of 175%, this is not too much and shouldn’t lead to too much distortion. I chose one with a relatively large lens although the smaller lens was in a more modern LED-technology instead of using neon bulbs, but I thought a large lense would be more comfortable to work with. The lamp has a daylight colour temperature, so it will also be good for capturing true colours when I work in the evenings. So overall I’m quite happy with the decision and newly motivated to approach the topic…
I also decided to buy a more robust easel – my old one was a tripod and recently the upper block to hold the canvas broke because my cats played hide and seek around the easel and it fell down. So this time, I opted for an H-frame design which has more stability. And while I was at it, I followed up a book advertisement presenting the drawings of Piotr Sonnenwend, a Polish artist and stage designer. Some illustrative pictures and my reflections on his work are in a separate blog entry (see More artists: Piotr Sonnenwend)
From an artistic point of view, I find Piotr Sonnenwend’s works inspiring, especially with respect to trying out new techniques of working with the materials on a surface. In my own studies, I think I am not ‘working enough’ – I draw some lines, try to capture some details, and since this looks like ‘nothing’, I give up disheartend, then try to recover motivation for not entirely abandoning the topic.
One solution would be to stick to the drawing and ‘try harder’, and see whether an initially weak representation can improve. Under the proviso that I can overcome the eyesight problem (it’s really hard for me to focus my eyes on tiny details about structures and how they are represented through light and dark areas), being more experimental might be my way to go.
So the problems with the ‘detailed pencil drawing’ of natural objects will probably remain, and I think I will develop more towards the other drawing style of more expressive, less detailed kind of works. Influenced by the works of Sonnenwend, I developed some ideas about how I might make the task of detailed observation more interesting and rewarding for me. One of the ideas was to combine pencil drawings with other media, especially acrylic colors. I was thinking of colouring the support and re-working light and dark areas in layers of transparency and opaqueness, using a dark colour range like black, paynes grey, indigo, van Dyck brown etc., in combination with soft pencil or graphite.
I’m currently quite stressed due to other commitments, but I will try to free up at least some hours next week-end for course work. Hopefully from July on I will be able to devote more time for the course, although I must acknowledge that my time budget will be rather tense over the rest of the year. The good side of this is that I need activities that I do ‘for myself’, and practising art is one way of recovering from other obligations. So not finding time for coursework actually implies that I’m so stressed that I don’t have any leasure time, which is not a good thing. Therefore, finding time for coursework is something vital.
Cauliflower
I had a breakthrough yesterday evening! I thought I should give it another try, and took a cauliflower as my natural object and the A3 sketchbook. I intended to try and make several tiny detail studies on the sheet, but then just stayed with a single one, and drew for about 1 and a half hours. There are many errors and distortions and the balance of gray tones isn’t right, but nevertheless for me it was a huge step forward and I’m quite satisfied with my attempt. The cauliflower isn’t immediately recognizable due to all the errors, but I think when one looks a bit longer, the shapes begin to appear.
I did not finish the drawing, because it was late and I was tired. Otherwise I think I would have drawn some more leaves at least sketchily to make the object more recognizable. At the beginning, I was overwhelmed by the many details I saw and wasn’t able to outline shapes, but after a while I began to ‘understand’ my object better and was able to connect loose ends which made some shapes clearer. It will still be a long way to go, but for the first time I felt that I was learning something and that there was progress. Really glad about this!
What I find very difficult is to draw the textures while getting the proportions of the elements right, plus the internal balance of gray tones. There was an instruction to draw an outline sketch first, which should actually help with the proportions. In my first drawings I began with a sketch and it was roughly ok, but not this time with the cauliflower. I’ll keep trying.
I had contacted my tutor some days ago because I felt so disheartened and her answer was to be patient and keep trying, because drawing is difficult and it takes time to learn. I guess she’s right! She recommended to resolve the block by trying out different approaches to the task, and draw something I like to get into the flow, then get back to the tasks I find difficult. Good advice and it suits me well.
Rose, strawberries, cucumber
I made a pause with writing, though not entirely with drawing. After the cauliflower, I made some more drawings. I wasn’t able to draw every day as I wanted and as I should, to get into the habit, but I did make a drawing every two or three days.
I drew a study of a rose three days ago, and today I drew a strawberry and a cucumber. I’m not extremely satisfied, it rather feels like walking without getting forward, but I’ll keep on trying. One of the problems is that I don’t manage to find interesting textures. And when I have an object, I seem to focus on shape rather than surface texture, and I feel that I’m producing a caricature of the object, rather than a natural study. I do not really know how to improve, but I think it’s all about ‘learning to see’. For now, I’ll just give it some more tries, hoping that insight comes through practice.
Walnut and Clematis
I made two more drawings, a walnut and a clematis flower, trying to get back into the process rather than focusing on the exercise. I don’t feel comfortable with this exercise, because the task is described in so technical terms. This leaves not much flexibility to adapt the technique to the object at hand and constantly creates inner resistance for me when trying to get on.
I think that using hatching to draw patterns as the task description demands is not a very good idea in general, because this technique is not able to create fine structure. I think a line technique is much better for textures. Hatching can then be applied on top to work out the darker zones. But I really don’t like this, because I feel that it destroys the subtlety of the line texture.
What would work for me would be selecting smooth objects, like apples or pears, then do an outline sketch, and use hatching to work out the grayscale. Alternatively, if I select an object with an interesting texture, then I’d use a line technique to bring out the texture, and create light and dark areas in this technique by making lighter vs darker marks or increasing the density of marks.
Back to line drawing: turnip cabbage
So I’m a bit at a loss with task instructions. I’ve just given it another try and got back to the first task of the project, doing a pure line drawing with a deeply black pen. I chose felt pen 0.2 thickness and drew a turnip cabbage. I focused on the root because I found it interesting how the twigs grow out of the root. I wasn’t able to comply to the instruction of not lifting the pen from the paper. Probably this works better with objects that have a more pronounced surface structure. By contrast, the surface of the root is rather smooth, and the twigs turn it into a somewhat architectural structure.
So basically, the task and the object are not very well matched. Maybe that’s what students are supposed to learn? But despite all kinds of problems while drawing, I still can see some progress from my first line drawing (the pepper half) to this one. I feel more secure and more ready to take some risks at the same time. To me this means that I’m more open to try out something, with less pressure to obtain a “perfect” result.
I will now try out the hatching technique. Maybe is more appropriate for the object: It has a smooth surface and the twigs might look nice when brought out through hatching grayscales. Not that I’m any proficient at hatching, but I’ll just try.
Turnip cabbage pencil drawings
I’ve made two turnip cabbage drawings and will now proceed to the next exercise because I’m beginning to get very annoyed. I don’t know why this happens, but being obliged to use a certain technique which I feel is not appropriate for the object and with which I’m not comfortable puts me in a position of doing some drawing gym, and this is not why I’m studying art.
I think that it’s enough for now, I’ve had my share of hatching tries. Unfortunately, I’m no more comfortable with stipples and dots, the next task. I have to admit that I’ll be glad when this project is over.
I permitted myself to first make one turnip cabbage drawing without restrictions to a certain technique. I was more comfortable with that one. My approach was to get into a flow of movement to get the forms right, then try to get the shades right by a soft application of the pencil with its flat side. This technique makes for gray areas that are more embedded in the entire picture than doing greys by hatching, because my hatched lines do not correspond to the forms in space. But I fell back on another old error and drew a “dark background” which is ugly because it’s so uneven and hastily drawn, destroying somehow the subtlety of the cabbage forms.
Then I drew the same object again, this time trying to use hatching. Because I constantly seem to forget that this is the focus of the entire task here, I wrote it on top of the sheet to remind me!
Overall, I’m not very happy at the moment with my coursework. I also feel that I’m too impatient, having difficulties to spend more than 15 or 20 minutes on a single picture. I think I’d rather just take my sketchbook and draw anything I like, without restriction to “only natural objects” or specific techniques. I’d be more comfortable with just exploring the object I see and draw in a way that feels good, whatever the technique.
Another issue is the format. The tasks contain instructions about paper format, and I’m constantly at odds with this. My objects for this project tend to be small, so I just don’t get the A3 sheets filled. I would need to enlarge them by a factor 20 to fill the sheet but I have much resistance to do this (and that’s probably why I haven’t, so far). I’d prefer using smaller sheets of paper, selecting an appropriate size depending on the object, and this would normally be A5. Instead, I draw tiny objects which get lost on the A3 sheet, like strawberries or the cucumber. Nothing seems right for me with these instructions, I constantly have the feeling that things are going wrong.