To prepare a more considered line drawing, I made some preparatory blind line drawings, as suggested in the course material. They were all done very quickly. After the first, I found the resemblance extremely low and thought this might be due to a too nervous approach with too much movement. In the next two drawings, which were made on the next sketchbook page, I tried to calm down and make somewhat slower, less irregular movements.
The final attempt was made with felt pen. These are actually three separate drawings made on top of each other. I began with a light brown tone and thought that I might make use of the effect of repeated marks at the same spot by creating some tonal effects. The result wasn’t really convincing, and I decided to add another drawing in dark red, trying to reduce mark making by focusing on simpler shapes. I found this didn’t work out either, so I made a third attempt in dark blue, this time focusing on the contour and still reducing the amount of marks. I think the result looks interesting, although it requires imagination so see the celery root in it.
I then proceeded to a more considered line drawing. I found it very difficult to visually disentangle the root structure. I made a second attempt which I think is slightly improved because I discovered that there was an internal architecture which structured the little root stems in layers. I tried to focus on the larger shapes but each time got caught by the complexities of those tiny little root stumps and then constantly lost track of where I was at. The pattern was too complex to draw blind either, so I felt a bit at a loss. I also found that the object I drew fell apart – there was so much going on in the interwoven root area, and almost nothing on the remaining surface area of the root.
The next day, I made another try with pencil on gray paper. Unfortunately the pencil was hardly visible because it reflected the light, so I decided to overwork the drawing with black fineliner. This increased the visibility of the marks considerably. I think this drawing was a step forward because the root shapes were less stylized and the object felt more whole, with more resemblance to the object in the kind of marks used for the interwoven roots and the surface texture. I did not finish the drawing because I felt so exhausted.
I was unsure how to proceed, feeling unable to make a detailed line drawing of the entire structure. Later that day I decided to do a quicker line drawing in the sketchbook, focusing on what I could capture in one single go, relatively quickly. I concentrated on line and tried not to get caught by tiny details, instead attempting to cover the entire object with constant speed and attention. I think this drawing is an improvement because it is less anxious and less stylized, taking up the approach I began to explore in the previous drawing on grey paper.
Then after a longer break that day, I had the idea of using a viewfinder to see how the root would look when framing an arbitrary section. I really liked what I saw. It was like a little sculpture and I felt connected to what had initially fascinated me about the subject. I tested several views through the viewfinder and then decided on one which I felt brought out some nice plasticity and structure (not the one shown in the photo).
All the time I had struggled with the kind of hairy surface texture in some parts of the root, because there were light lines on dark ground and I found it impossible to draw these using a negative space technique (outlining them by making their immediate background darker). They were just too delicate for this.
This problem had been behind my earlier choice of pastel pencils in one of the different angles drawings – pastel permits to draw light on dark, which was exactly what I needed. But here I tried out a different technique which I remember from childhood, that of layering wax pastels. I used oil pastels and made a first layer in ochre, a second in brown, and a third in black. Then I searched around for a scratching tool and decided on a bamboo pen.
I then began to scratch away the top layer of my oil pastel surface, revealing the lighter tones beneath. I worked quite some time to scratch out the pattern I saw. It was difficult to develop the tonality from lighter to medium and dark tones, but I am quite satisfied with the result of this first attempt in my sketchbook. The drawing has some depth to it and the technique permits to depict the delicate hairy roots as light lines on a dark background. I’m not sure whether I can make this work on a larger scale but I think I might get back to the idea and explore further its possibilities.
