The task was to grab the chance of drawing an animal whenever the chance arises. Then after practicing in two sessions of several hours, with different animal poses and different drawing media, to take a large sheet and make a drawing in my preferred media.
Wednesday 5 September 2012
I began with this exercise yesterday evening, without having finished the research point, but already inspired by what I had seen from Leonardo and Dürer. I had the sheet with many small cats by Leonardy in my mind, and also Dürer’s Hare.
I drew several pages, beginning with Paula but also tried to depict Moritz, Micky and Gina, my other cats. Due to her illness, Paula is very weak and doesn’t move very much so she should be quite easy to draw, but my first attempts weren’t very successful. I think this was because I drew too large and too detailed. I tried to draw her smaller as I had seen it on the Leonardo sheet, but maybe I sat too close to her and just couldn’t do it.
Somewhat later I drew Moritz who was resting in a chair, but instead of sleeping he began to wash himself. These movements are so fast that I wasn’t able to depict him… but I learnt something, my approach changed a bit. Firstly I tried to draw smaller and with him I had more success, maybe because I deliberately placed myself at a larger distance (3 metres instead of 1 meter with the first tries to draw Paula). Of the smaller drawings, I could place more on a single sheet and the sheets looked more interesting. Towards the end of the 10 minutes I had been drawing him he came to a rest and I could work a bit longer on the final sketch, adding some tonal values for his dark fur with white socks.
I also did one sketch of Gina, not more because she then ran away, and one sheet with Micky but he was also moving too quickly and I wasn’t succesful.
The drawings are extremely sketchy because I was so irritated by the cats’ movements, but during the session my perceptional focus shifted from moving details like head or paws to the more stable overall shape of the body. I also began to draw quicker and tried to first outline the main shape, then draw some details. So the later sketches are somewhat more successful than the earlier ones. But I certainly need more practice with this. And I’m full of admiration for Leonardo who depicted the essence of various poses so typical for cats with such accuracy!
I think for the large animal drawing I will select Paula, because depicting her has a special meaning to me as these may be the last memories I will have from her. I had looked at the details of Dürer’s hare and think that he first made a broad shape in colour and then added fine linear detail, and this is how I would like to approach the drawing of Paula.
I am thinking about using Conté Pastels because they permit soft gradings of colour but with their hard edges they also allow to draw linear details. Pastel pencils would be handy for these details too, but I have spent so much on artist equipment that for now, I think I will try what I can do with what I have, rather than adding ever more materials.
Monday 17 September
In the meantime, I have made quite a few sketches of my cats. In general, they move too fast for me to draw then. If they are not sleeping, they tend to change their position within seconds and I found it almost impossible to capture a particular pose beyond a drawing a rough outline.
But drawing them is possible when they are resting. I found it quite difficult to draw the fur with a linear tool like a ball pen. It worked a bit better with a soft pencil. I haven’t tried out pastels so far. I thought they would be good to quickly give an area a particular colour and then add some furry details. I’m planning to do some pastel drawings and also try out coloured markers before tackling the drawing on a large sheet.
I think I will draw on an A3 sheet which to me seems large enough for drawing a cat. An A2 size would mean to enlarge the cat or draw much background and I think this isn’t important for now.
One thing that stroke me was that I felt like capturing how very ill Paula is, even in the quick sketches. When compared to Moritz or Gina who aren’t ill and are resting quite relaxed and calm, it appears to me that Paula is tense even when resting. It’s something in her facial expression and maybe also in her body language. Also, her fur looks different from that of the other cats. While it feels as soft as ever when I touch her, its appearance is like “badly combed”, and I think this is also due to her bad health. It’s a bit difficult for me that my drawings depict her illness, because I’m so sad about it. It reminds me of Monet who painted his wife on her deathbed. I wish I had drawn Paula years ago, when she was still well.
Monday 24 September
I have completed this task with quite a few more drawings. I’ve tried out markers, but wasn’t very comfortable with them. Pastels worked better, although I’m light years away from the accuracy of the Durer Drawing I had in mind. My main difficulty was the impredictability of the cats. Even when they were sleeping and I set out to draw them, they would just jump up at any moment and I was left with whatever I had drawn until then.
I’m glad the course materials encourage students to try out different media. After having reviewed the work for this task, I find that the pencil sketches are very soft, while other media are much more expressive, for example ball pen or pastels.
I’ve made many drawings for this task and am glad that I perceive some progress over the course of the drawings. I’m not sure which of the drawings I consider the “final drawing” as demanded by the task, but the last one could be it for now.
Trying out markers:
Back to pencil and then pastels:
