After reflection whether to draw some more on exercise 1 or to proceed to exercise 2, I decided for the latter. Although I found my drawings for exercise 1 not really convincing, I thought I had understood what to look out for, and that by varying the type of practice I’d prevent becoming bored.
Reminder on hatching techniques
This exercise firstly suggests to check whether one needs a reminder on hatching techniques, and I think in fact I need one. Looking for some additional technical information, a Google search directed me to the Wikipedia entry for Hatching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatching). Basically, hatching is “an artistic technique to create tonal or shading effects by drawing […] closely spaced parallel lines. When lines are placed at an angle to one another, it is called cross-hatching.” (see the post Drawing skills: Hatching for more)
So for a start, I will practice some hatching techniques. The first part of this exercise looks good for this: Trying to make 4 different tones by varying the hatching, using 4 different tools.
Pages 1 to 4: Practice Hatching
I made 4 pages with hatching experiments in 4 different drawing tools: pencil, black biro, fineliner and dip pen with black ink. The initial attempts were rather arbitrary, but then I developed a more systematic approach of using parallel lines in four different angles, applied in layers of cross-hatching. I also tried out a “freestyle” hatching, where the tone was drawn by making 1 to 4 layers of parallel lines, but the angles of each layer varied freely.
I found it difficult to develop an approach that resulted in predictable tones. Especially with pencil, this required to control not only line density and angle, but also the pressure because otherwise the tone of the line would interfere with the desired tone from cross-hatching. For example, 2 layers of dark lines would approximate 4 layers of lighter lines in overall tonality. I learned that again pencil hatching makes it easier to create subtle shadings, whereas the “pure black” drawing tools which do not vary in tone require systematic control over the number of cross-hatched layers.
After having tried out so many hatching variations, I felt more comfortable with the technique and approached the tonal study of four objects
Page 5: Tonal study of four objects
I’m finding it very difficult to decide on objects to draw – they should have a simple form, and for the tonal study, I was looking for non-reflective surfaces because I thought this would help to see the tones more clearly. I finally decided on fruit: An orange, and apple and two kiwi. I arranged them with a light source at their side, because this seemed to bring out light and shadows very well.
I was tempted to draw the study with a fineliner, but did not feel confident enough to get the objects’ shapes well enough for a non-erasable drawing tool, therefore chose pencil. Drawing the shapes then went surprisingly well, maybe some unconscious learning processes have taken place since the last attempts.
I found it difficult to follow the instruction that “tonal shadow patterns follow the object” because with cross hatching, I would apply more than one angle of lines, and most of the angles wouldn’t be following the form of the object. I nevertheless tried to draw them as if I was following the objects shape.
It’s the first time that I applied a hatching technique in this way. My marks are not very subtle and I think in future drawings I might improve if I take more time. But overall, I like the drawing and find the tones worked out surprisingly well, especially in the areas of shade. There were the darker areas of the objects, but they still had to be lighter than the cast shadow on the table surface, and I think I have drawn this correctly.