Sketchbook: Developing Drawings (M4 Chpt 8)

The aim here was to continue trying out and developing drawing ideas, in particular with colour and pattern. It was a good opportunity to try out some ideas I omitted in chapter 5, try out something completely new and revisit other ideas from previous chapters and modules

I started out with a few observational drawings of new flowers I thought I might incorporate into ideas for my final chapter in this module.

Orchid: drawn from life. In the final analysis I didn't use the orchid. It was a little too complex for this exercise, but I might come back to it for chpt 10.

Crocosmia, from the garden (also incidentally one of my favourite flowers)

Developing drawings

Seaweed
I first revisited the seaweed I'd drawn for chapter 2. I took one piece of the seaweed and made a template:

I turned the seaweed template three times to make a circular pattern. Then used colouring pencils and really went for this in a quite rough style:

I then went over the whole thing with three layers of watercolour washes. I'd neglected to try this with my earlier drawings. I wasn't entirely happy with the final outcome, possibly down to a poor choice of background colour:

I put this through the photo edit to see if it could be improved:

Tulips

I love tulips, simple, silky and seductive. I made a quick drawing and then made a template of a single tulip stem. I forgot to take pictures of course:

I coloured the tulips in with wax crayons then went over with water colour wash in strong red purple colours. I really quite like this

Then I tried out a new idea. Wax crayons, watercolour and gold acrylic ink. I was looking for an overlay of gold, like gilding rubbed off (?). It was hard to photograph this piece. I think this idea is worth taking forward and I can see something along the lines of Japanese chrysanthemum on a gold background developing from this...….

Old and new ideas

I went back a few modules for this idea. I got out some newspaper, cut it up, stuck it on some paper applied gesso in a rough way so the newspaper wasn't entirely covered and then set about drawing the crocosmia I sketched earlier. I went over this in biro, working around the outside of the sketch in cross hatching - leaving some of it intentionally without shading. Then applied a layer of gloss medium to seal the whole thing. I really liked this idea:

This piece reminded me of how I had used scraffitto for my 'scraffitto city' in chapt 4, so I had a go at using scraffitto as background shading. I think it could prove useful in creating a quite ominously dark background, if I used black paper as a base:

Using Stencils

I've not tried this technique before but I really liked it. I made some leaf shapes on paper and cut these out so that I could use both the stencil shape and what was left behind:

I firstly used the base and built up layers of watercolour, brushing through the base. I love this idea. It would work well as a base for an illustration or to draw focus, work as a frame, to the main drawing:

Next time, I'll make the stencil base out of something more substantial and varnish it so it can withstand being used multiple times:

Then I turned my attention to the individual stem shapes. These I layered up with wax and watercolour:

It lacked oompf, so I worked over one corner with biro to add clarity and depth:

Then went over the berries and paler leaves to lift those a little:

I only did that corner, and was quite happy to leave it there, however I'll definitely revisit this idea:

Returning to an old theme

Right at the start in Module 1 we were asked to paint a lemon half in light layers of watercolour. I was going to return to the lemon and try out all the different techniques we had covered in this module, however I somehow lacked the enthusiasm required. However; it did occur to me I could have a go at intaglio printing, which is like drawing and it would enable me to revisit tonal drawing with a bit of a difference. I used 3mm Perspex and a Japanese fine point for this: