Second A1 Drawing of the Project - Bringing All of my Experimental Elements Together into a Final Piece to Compliment the First A1 Drawing
As part of my ongoing attempt to finalise the project, I have decided to do a second drawing at A1 size to compliment the first piece I have done. By doing this, I am trying to solidify the elements I have been working on throughout the project and consolidate them into larger, more challenging pieces of work. This will compliment other elements of my project, such as the learning platform and my further supporting research and work on the blog. However, This area of my project allows me to show how I have developed I my creative practice and how I am combining elements from all areas of the project.
In stage one, I replicated the process I have used throughout the project, a pencil outline. I have found that regardless of the mediums I use over the top of this pencil outline, starting with an outline is very beneficial for myself. It allows me to accurately set out and scale up the shed without it being a challenging aspect of the piece. It also allows me to make alterations at an earlier stage to eliminate the scale, angle or even perspective being inaccurate. Having this element of my process being one of the more consistent
parts that has not changed starts each drawing off in a way that I am pleased with, which eliminates any issues in key areas of the piece. Much like the previous A1 piece, I quickly went into applying charcoal over the top to develop a tonal range. The addition of a wide-ranging tonal spectrum in my work has been something I have discussed across my project, and is an element I have been wanting to improve up on. It was not until I began working with charcoal that I finally found a way to develop more grey tones in my work. With this in mind, I decided to apply a significant amount of charcoal to the paper to create clear areas of light and dark. Typically I wouldn’t go as dark as I did on prior pieces, however I wanted to have a dark tonal range for this piece to create more contrast and interest. I think this was a good decision because my reference appeared to be quite flat and boring in some respects
because of the camera angle it was taken at. But, adding some depth and tone allows the piece to become far more interesting and thus changes the mood. If I had to make one change at this stage it would be the darkness in the sides of the building nearest the windows. It does appear to be very dark at this stage, but it was something I rectified later in the drawing development. It showed me that I needed to be more mindful of how much charcoal I applied and the amount I was rubbing into the paper.
The changes made are shown in the image (right) where I have begun applying pen over the top, as well as rubbing away areas to create light points in the piece. Doing both of these elements at the same time gave the piece balance and clear areas of detail because I was able to create an equal amount of tone, light and detail in one stage. To do this, I used my reference and picked out the key textures, details and characteristics of the shed and tries
to replicate them in fine liner. I think I have developed a good representation of the piece by using a range of fine liners, as well as brush pens to get a range of marks and tones of black and grey in a more scratchy medium.
I have included a close up of the drawing at the mid-way stage to show the difference in layers and detail as the drawing is being added to gradually. Although this process of working in layers considerably double the amount of time taken on each individual piece, I do think it develops an outcome closer to my vision of how I want my work to look. Having more consideration about how I work, the processes I used within my practice and how I use my chosen mediums has drastically improved how I look at my work and how I make new creative decisions. I think the last two pieces of this project show this, as a result. Looking at the drawing at this stage shows how working in layers is crucial for my process and how I am beginning to understand the capabilities of different mediums, with each having very different jobs to do in terms of creative a finished piece.
FINAL DRAWING
This is the final drawing, as shown above. I am really happy with the piece because it shows that I have developed my practice further throughout this project. I think it shows how I have been able to develop my practice and change it to improve the quality of my drawings. Working in layers is something that has really benefitted this drawing because it has given it a good tonal range and importantly, lots of depth. Having these two elements in my work is important because my fine liner drawings previously often lacked in these areas because of the type of medium I was using. Although the outcome was strong, I wanted to find a way to give it a further layer of realism. I think I have been able to do this with the inclusion of charcoal as a layer within the drawings, because it gives that tonal spectrum that I was lacking. Complimenting charcoal with fine liner has been one of the best parts of this project because it has given me the opportunity to have high levels of detail with lots of light and dark. I think this drawing shows this very well. In terms of composition, I like this piece because it invites themes into the shed and all the way down through its individual elements in the foreground. Although there are Moree areas of exposed charcoal, I do still think it has the depth and realism I desire. I wanted the piece to be slightly different to the other A1 in that I wanted there to be charcoal visible and prioritised in some of the areas that would otherwise be negative space. I think this gives the shed more of a sense of place, and changes the composition for the better.
Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome of this piece, and think it will compliment the other A1 piece really well when exhibited together.
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