Project 5
Exercise 2
For this exercise we were asked to begin by making a preliminary sketch across two sketchbook pages.
In this part of the task we were to establish the primary focus and any shapes and objects necessary to make the drawing an interesting piece.
I decided to focus on a group of buildings in my local area, with an interesting building as the focal point.
I established a back, middle and foreground in the preliminary sketch, also using it to note down the weather, the general mood I felt whilst drawing and any other things that came to mind. There was a point that I began to feel rather agitated with this exercise. It was then that I began looking at other student’s blogs to see how they had approached it and realised that the preliminary sketch didn’t need as much detail as I was putting into it.
It was then that I decided that all the basic shapes and features were included and that I was ready to move on to the next part of the task.
I will say now that yes, the preliminary sketch did help me a lot when it came to creating the more final version of this townscape. I was able to use the middle of the book to work out the middle point of the page and then work outward from there. It might be interesting to return to this in the future, as I think it was really supportive in the success of the below drawing.
I used a black fine liner and a ruler to recreate the buildings and the objects surrounding them. Originally, I had picked up the ruler to map in the general shapes of the buildings, however, it got to the point that I thought the angular, exact appearance of the lines looked brilliant, and I wanted it throughout the piece.
Once I had added in the building shapes, I moved on to adding their features – the windows, doors, and anything else that was part of their character. Each building in this piece is different, which I love, and which was an aspect I wanted to capture. I’d like to think I have done that.
Fast forward towards the end of the task, all the lines were added and all the subjects included in the drawing. I then wondered for a moment how I should go about shading the darker areas. I wanted to make this piece mine and throughout the exercise I had held a vision in my head of what I wanted to do with the shaded areas. After a little while I just decided to go for it and shaded in these areas completely with a pigment brush pen and I am so pleased with the result.
I think, in my opinion, that this is one of my best pieces from the work I’ve created during Expanse. It’s more my kind of style; I love working with pen and fine lines and this was exactly what the task entailed.
If I were to complete it again, maybe I would experiment with a range of shading techniques. I was eager to jump straight in with this one, and, whilst I’m really pleased with the outcome, it would have been interesting to see if there were any others that suited the piece better.
I think my perspective is fairly accurate, however, there are some areas that I can see need improvement. I had been working on this piece for a long time, and I think towards the end I got a bit sloppy as I wanted to finish it. Another feature I would be keen to alter or experiment with is the windows. I didn’t want to spoil the piece by shading or adding to the windows, so I’ve just left them. I’m interested in talking to my tutor regarding this to see what her thoughts are or if she has any ideas. Perhaps I will return to it after hand in and tweak it a little.
Overall, I’m happy. My attention span is fairly short, however, I sat for a good few hours working on the two parts of this task and I am chuffed with how it turned out.
Jesy Gilkes 