Studio Brief 1 - What is drawing? OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING

TRANSLATING INFORMATION

The process of drawing from life has revealed so many values for me during this task. The constraints, or titles, that we had to work to forced a greater acknowledgement of the things around me and the sights I see but perhaps don't observe fully. Working from observation required us to seek out places and things to refer to, showing us the value of drawing from something rather than attempting to make it up. The drawing above answers the constraint 'from above', a constraint that required me to take notice of what I could actually see out of my window, thus I learnt the wealth of visual resources that observational drawing can tap into. Using graphite I have used gestural marks to guide the shapes in my drawing and worked into these with pen lines. I feel that this image is successful in its documentation of shape and location through the roughness and speed of the drawing, noting down key information without formalising the imagery. 

I enjoyed observing plant forms as these take on so many shapes and directions that gesture becomes key to documenting these. To record this observation I used broad and fine marker pens to layer brush like marks with line. Layering a few green tones creates a distinction between the plants, supporting the communication of the marks without these needing to be highly representative. I found from this drawing that my perception of plants was changed as I realised the lack of formality in their structures and shapes, a formality which I would have falsely translated working from imagination. I do however think that this drawing could benefit from a greater use of texture to fully communicate the qualities of what I was observing.

Recording my peers as they drew challenged my drawing of figures as I tend to draw very characterised, comical figures. Drawing from life forced me to document more proportional figures and really take note of the way people hold themselves and interact with the world around them. I feel I struggled with the translation of mouths and eyes in my figure drawings so this may be something to develop through continued observation of life. Capturing the action of my peers is something I feel I have done well but I would benefit from studying the figure more as a whole.