Sketchbook Drawings September 2014 - May 2015

Sketchbok Portfolio 2014-2015

@Jackie @Phil Life Drawing Collection

Life Drawing Collection 2014-2015

First copy of my collected drawings this year. However I am questioning if I should also include my self-portraits and digital art studies in this document.

26/11/2014 Life Drawing

     Today was an interesting life drawing session as we were introduced to integrating props into our compositions. In this case the two primary props were a sheet of light blue fabric and a plastic mannequin. Another feature was that Vicky used a projector to cast a sillhouette of a splatter painting on to the subject to create some very interestign light patterns

    I particularly enjoyed this session as not only do I find it interesting to draw draped fabric, the use of the material and the alabaster-white mannequin gave a strong classical feel to the entire scene; a period in history that I adore for its mythical feel.

    There was also a hint of the otherworldly as the shadows cast by the splatter painting projection gave both Alan (the subject) and the mannequin the look of having mottled skin markings; some sort of alien skin pattern. Which made me think of some of the aliens from Star Trek, particularly the ones with patterns on their skin. I was surprised how easily how well the lower-right image turned out as I was told by Vicky after finishing it that what I had done was not an easy pose to draw (perhaps due to the foreshortening) but for the most part had ended up doing rather well in capturing it.

Life drawing 12/11/2014

    Some more life drawing done today. The bottom-left image was a practice in negative space and the "inner-subject" as I could call it was drawn with a combination of green and red coloured pencils. The idea to use these came from seeing a green tint in the highlights on the subject's back and legs which was probably a result of light reflected on bundles of green plastic tape that were behind the subject that reflected the light onto his back. At certain angles however human skin does posess faint greenish/blue tints to it particularly under yellow light due to the blueish colouring of near-surface veins. The bottom-right drawing was very interesting to do due to the lightboxes in the picture which created some interesting shadows and highlights especially on his stomach, right shoulder and legs.

     The bottom-right drawing was also drawn in the dark with only the lightboxes for illumination in order to bring out the highlights and shadows cast onto the subject's form. The top half of the right leg may not entirely be perfect as it could do with a bit of thickness on the top and the face could use definite improvement, it was a bit fiddly with the charcoal stalk I had on me. I used a putty rubber to add some of the highlights and clean up some of the shadows. For instance there was a very crisp shadow under his right thigh from the cushion he was sitting on which I cleared up after drawing in and smudging in the tone using the putty rubber to get a nice near-clean line which would primarily have been broken up by the minute roughness inherent in the makeup of human skin.

Invisible Cities Set 5 to 8

 With these four sets I feel like I am starting to get an idea of which cities I might be interested in, although given how I have only done eight thumbnails so far out of a possible 20+ it may still be early doors as to which city I will short-list for my three artworks. With these images I decided to experiment with silhouettes, viewing angles and perhaps looking more closely at interiors.

Argia was somewhat challenging to visualise, as Calvino's descriptions indicated the city was potentially entirely filled in with dirt. Sky, streets and houses were stuffed to bursting with clay and rock so I wondered how to express it. I did consider elaborating perhaps the citizens having a relationship with the roots or the worms, and like Armilla I didn't restrict myself to humans being human-sized; roots of colossal proportions could inhabit caves and tunnels that make up the city. Perhaps the people have an innate ability to move the earth somehow?
     One mental image that surfaced when imagining this place came from the 2005 Steven Baxter novel Transcendant. In one chapter the protagonist visits a subterranian hive of near-humans that live and communicate llike members of an ant colony, complete with a queen, drone castes and a lack of individual independant thought among members. Those other than the queen that interacted with outside influences were rather harshly euthenised by the collective as their minds would struggle to bear the magnitude of the world outside their colony.
    Despina was one of the fist cities I exaimed when I read Calvino's extracts and was the one which at first stuck in my head the most. Perhaps it was the contrast of the fleet-like skyscrapers from the desert and the dual camel humps from the oceon. I figured this was a description of the skyline so I tested that idea as well as considering other portside aspects such as tavern interiors  Its probably the most intriguing and out of the earlier ones it is not bearing a potentially-bleak-looking population (something I felt reading about the lives of the people in Argia and Anastasia), and it seemed like a generally thriving and largely enjoyable place to live for the common man.

  One of the other investigations I tried was colour contrast. With Anastasia there was emphasis on coloured stones such as agate, onyx, chalcedony and chrysoprase and a possible culture revolving around cutting and polishing these stones. So what I tried to imagine is that while the city is colourful and beautiful, perhaps walls studded, it hides an ethic where the only pleasure comes from work. So there is perhaps a colourful and drab side of the city that exists side by side with each other - perhaps colourful stones at street level and more drab colours at higher levels where the eyes of the city's residents are less likely to look. Or perhaps the other way around, coloured stones inlaid in upper-floor walls where visitors are more likely to look on their travels though the city while residents keep their gaze to the more drab ground and first floors of buildings.

One trhing I have gotten the impression of regarding these cities - the people. In several of them the people sound like listless entities; daily routines, uncomfortable living conditions, being content with a bleak metropolis. It was as if Maro Polo wanted his listener to be both mystified and wary of these cities inhabited by strange shades of human beings. I might be looking too much into this though