Organic 1 – Photoshoot 1

Today we began our second project which is called ‘Organic 1’. We are going to be focussing on organic forms such as plants, shells, foods, feathers etc. For our first task, we were asked to take a variety of 20-30 photos of some organic items which had been brought in for us. After this we had to edit and select 9 or 10 of our favourite photos from the set. I took all these photos on my iPod.

Here are the bags of different organic objects we were given:

We were asked to think about composition, colour, tone, background and focus. To begin with, I chose to set up a black and white background using 2 pieces of paper this way, depending on the colour of the object, then depended on what shade background it would be placed on. I attached the paper to the wall so that it wouldn’t move. Along with this we used the torches on our phone to change the way the objects were being affected by light. This helped up to create our own shadows and more in depth tone. Here is an image to show how we used our torches to light up the items:

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1. Pinecone

I chose to start off by using both the black and white background for this item. I did this because the pinecone has a lot of contrast on it as it is very dark in the centre around the stem, yet light around the tips of the sticking out parts. When it came to editing this photo, I tweaked the brightness and contrast to increase the tone of the shadows, I then pulled down the saturation so that the image turned black and white.

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2. Garlic 1

I chose to use the garlic next because I thought it was very simplistic and an easy shot to get. I chose to keep this one in colour as I didn’t want to lose the purple colour it had on it. Instead I just increased the saturation very slightly so that the garlic began to look aged and worn. I used the torch to cast a small shadow underneath the little piece, I didn’t think it needed a massive shadow as it isn’t a very dramatic or interesting object.

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3. Garlic 2

I then went on to use the rest of the clove of garlic as I also wanted an object with contrasting tones, such as the white skin and purple inner. I put the piece on the white background because I wanted the contrast to be identified within the bulk of garlic, rather than the eye being drawn to a black background. I am happy with this image because I believed I composed the image and object nicely. I put the torch above the garlic as I wanted as much of the piece to be lit up. I used a ready made filter on my iPod called ‘fade’ on this image, as it dulled down the colour ever so slightly which I preferred over the original colours.

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4. Leaf 1

Next I moved onto a leaf. I chose this leaf over all the others because personally I found it had the most interesting edges and form compared to the other leaves which most seemed to have round edges and smooth surfaces. I put the torch above the leaf and towards the back so that a shadow was cast towards my iPod. Also because the leaf wasn’t flat and the edges were lifting up, the torch created many shadows on the actual surface of the leaf showing the definition and unsteady surface. I find this image has a lot of mood and negative atmosphere to it. I hardly tweaked this image, apart from increasing the shadows making the darker sections across the leaf really come out.

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5. Leaf 2

This is the same leaf as before. I chose to use another photo I took of it, as I also really liked this picture. I used lighting which was to the left of the leaf which added more definition and to the section of the leaf I was photographing. This is the only image I cropped. I chose to look deeper at the leafs detail and surface. I also put the leaf onto the black background because it really made the picture get a spooky but vulnerable fell to it. I used an ready made black and white filter on the top of this image.

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6. Feather

I selected this feather because I thought the markings on it were very interesting. Again, I used artificial lighting for my photograph. I chose to light up the feather from the angle the camera was looking at it because this meant the closest part of the feather was looked at first, then the viewers eyes run up the stem of the feather and into the distance. This image hardly needed any editing, however I did slightly increase the saturation so that the browns were stronger in the image, as the colours were more faded on the actual feather. Again I chose the black background because the feather is mainly a dark colour, so I wanted it to gently mix with the background not stand out too much like it would on the white background.

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7. Starfish

Next I photographed the only starfish we had in our organic objects collection. I chose the starfish because they are easily recognised and I think the underneath surface texture is interesting. I left the colour on this image, and only slightly increased the brightness as it was slightly darker than I wanted it to be. I put the starfish on the black background because I really wanted it to stand out from the background, therefore the detail is noticed as can be seen below.

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8. Shell 1

I loved the shape and form of this shell. I was able to use the lighting to make the shell look like it is never ending, by placing the torch at the front of the shell, therefore the end is very dark and fading into the black background. I also really like the patterns and lines on this shell. I also chose the black background because I really wanted the contrast in this image between the background and very light shell. With the torch being shone on it, I knew the shell would appear a light shade of grey when the image would be put into black and white.

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9. Shell 2

I chose to photograph this shell, because I also found this one interesting. The patterns in it and form are also interesting to me, just like the previous one. I struggled to get my camera to focus on this shell because I was only wanting the very tip of it to be sharply in focus, however, it seems the image is overly blurred towards the left, which I would improve if I attempted this shot again.

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10. Peppers

Finally, I chose to photograph the peppers. This is because they would bring some colour and light to my images. Once I placed them down, I found it difficult to set them up in a nice form but so that they wouldn’t fall over. Eventually I placed them like this and sound the right angle I liked. We used the torch again to light up the object. I put the light directly above the 3 peppers because I wanted them all to be fully lit up, so that the colours could be picked up well. Once I looked back on the image I had taken, I then edited slightly and increased the saturation. This is because I wanted to pull out the colours even more so that they were strong, but didn’t look unrealistic.

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I enjoyed this task because photography is definitely something I feel passionate about. I also had some knowledge on composition and lighting, therefore I could try to perfect my images.

Introduction to our new brief – Organic 1

Today we were introduced to the new brief which is ‘Organic 1’. We have 7 weeks to complete this project before the Christmas holidays. This unit will include tasks such as; drawing like perspective and mark making, tonal and scale drawing, photography, mono printing, mixed media prints, artist research and revisiting previously acquired and developed knowledge. This project will cover unit 3, 4 and 5,

Unit 3 – drawing unit

• Learn and develop skills
• Cover certain drawing tasks

Unit 4 – Communication unit

• Develop an understanding that communication skills play in developing ideas

Unit 5 – Practical unit

• Creating work in a 2D form

There are a range of artists and designers that we looked at. Some of these are; Henry Moore, Frank Auerbach, Da Vinci, Cath Kidson and Emily Sutton.

We discussed as a class what kind of natural forms would be part of the organic theme and created a mind map with all these ideas. I chose 10 organic forms from the mind map which I would like to look into for my work. These are:

• The elements e.g. Fire, Water, Earth, Air
• Leaves
• Rocks
• Fruit and Veg
• Landscapes
• Flowers
• Feathers
• Trees
• Shells
• Fungi

Here is the mind map we created:

Throughout this project, I would like to improve my drawing, digital editing skills and my communication skills. For drawing, I would like to improve on making my pieces more realistic and detailed. For my digital editing skills, I would like to develop all my knowledge of software such as photoshop. For my communication skills, I want to improve my presentation skills such as at the end of the project we will have to do a presentation of the work we have achieved, I would like to be able to talk clearly and confidently about my work in front of a group of people.

Artist research – Henry Moore & Frank Auerbach

Today we looked at 2 drawing/mark making artists, Henry Moore and Frank Auerbach.

Henry Spencer Moore

Henry Moore is a historical sculptor, born in Yorkshire, England on 30th July 1898 and died on 31st August 1986. His known pieces of art are abstract sculptures that are placed in public locations all over the world. Moore usually focussed on the human figure, most often the female form. In his home town of Castleford, he became known for his carved marble and large scale sculptures along with being a key part in introducing a form of modernism to art in the UK.

Moore was the seventh of eight siblings in his family who struggled with poverty frequently. He went to different infant schools, and learnt to model clay and carved wood. He made the decision to become a sculptor when he was eleven. He wasn’t able to get into Castleford grammar school on his first attempt but was accepted on his second try. His parents were tough on him to start with as they didn’t believe in his career choices of becoming a sculptor. After school, he became a teacher at the grammar school he was taught at.

Not only as a sculptor but as a drawer, Moore is inspired by the human form. For his sculptures he uses marble, stone and wood and for his drawings he uses various materials such as paint, chalk, pencil and charcoal. He creates messy lines in his drawings which are controlled so that they look a part of the piece, I believe he intends to create this affect.

The image below is the first piece of Moores that I liked. It contains various sketches that he did, which are ideas for sculptures he was planning to create. All of these sketches contain the same idea of an adult female sat in a chair holding a young child. To create these pieces it looks like he has used chalk and pencil. I think the only colour of yellow that he has used, is to highlight parts of the drawings, showing the possible affect light will have on the sculptures.

Moore uses quite heavy yet loose strokes in these sketches, however they are accurate and create correctly proportioned figures. The piece below doesn’t provoke an emotion for me, however I like how it shows the way Moore deeply plans and alters his ideas for his sculptures.

 

In the next piece, Moore has again created another drawing based on the human figure. However, this is an actual drawing, not a sketch of a plan. He has focussed solely on the hands of a person. From the marks he has made in this piece, I can’t work out what material(s) he has used to create it. As they are dark and fine lines, it could be pencil, pen or ink.

Moore has used the cross-hatching technique to create tone. As he has made heavier and closer together marks in the places that are darker on the piece, and less marks where it is lighter. However, he hasn’t used neat even lines, he has crossed them over in all directions, which does make it look messier. He has also allowed some lines to be messy, which gives the piece a different feel to it. Initially I felt like this piece had an innocent feel to is, as the hands being held together seemed like a symbol of hope. However after taking more time to look at it, and seeing the messy marks he has used, I then started to feel like there was some kind of loss and the hands were pleading for help, or holding themselves in fear, because the messy marks seemed negative.

 

I liked looking at Henry Moores drawing work, because even though all of his pieces have rough marks, they look realistic and have a meaning to the piece whether that is to provoke emotion or lay out his ideas.

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Frank Helmut Auerbach

Auerbach is a British figurative painter and born on 29th April 1931. He was born in Berlin, Germany however became a British citizen in 1947.

In 1939, as a child, he was sent to Britain on the Kinder Transport scheme, as he was a part of the groups that left Germany to escape Nazi persecution. His parents later died in a concentration camp in 1942.

In the UK, he became a pupil at Bunce Court School, in Kent. He didn’t just succeed in art classes but he also did well in his drama classes. He gained a passion for drama, and performing arts, however his love and talent for art were too strong therefore he pursued art as a career. He studied at St Martins School of Art from 1948 – 1952 and then the Royal College of Art from 1952 – 1955. He took additional classes which are believed to have influenced him more than the lessons he had in school and college. In 1955, he began his teaching career in secondary schools, visiting various art schools and then at Camberwell Slade School of Art. He has also had a variety of solo exhibitions in and around London, along with a couple exhibitions in New York.

Auerbach focuses on portraits and cityscapes in and around Camden Town. He frequently recreates pieces he has already done because he creates work of things he sees every day, and as he takes in more detail of these objects, he then finds himself dissatisfied with the previous art he has made. He uses a range of media to draw with, such as; charcoal, pastels, ink, chalk, and graphite. He is much less precise with the marks he makes compared to Henry Moores work. He uses aggressive strokes and heavy marks which are usually smudged.

 

The piece below, is a self portrait Auerbach created when he was much younger. It looks like he used chalk and charcoal. And seeing as though he mainly works in monochrome, it makes sense for him to use black and white materials. The lines and marks are uneven, messy and rough, and has applied them using loose strokes. This picture makes me feel a bit sad because he doesn’t look happy in his portrait, not only because of his expression but also because of the colours he used and marks he made. I am unaware of what he may have been experiencing at this point in his life, however I think he was expressing negative feelings into this portrait of himself, therefore the piece can release his emotions for him.

In the piece below, Auerbach has again focussed on a human figure, however it is not of himself, it is of a female. Again he has used the monochrome materials of chalk and charcoal, and used rough loose lines that have smudged. I think this picture also provokes sad emotions for me because the female looks isolated and alone. I think these feeling happen for me because the piece is solely of her face and no other part of her body. The black marks across her face I think look like fallen hair, however they could represent dark thoughts and emotions that she feels.

Perspective Drawing

VP = Vanishing point

Perspective lines are the lines that look like this – – – – –

VP 1

For this task we had to use perspective lines to create a 3D view of an object. We specifically focussed on a cuboid shape. To start, we had to draw a line horizontally across the centre of our sketchbook pages. From this line, a dot was put on it, this dot is called a vanishing point. The vanishing point is where the perspective lines are drawn from. When the lines have been drawn, we had to draw ONLY horizontal and vertical lines between which began to make a 3D looking object. Here is my sketchbook page for the vanishing point 1:

 

VP 2

Next we had to do a similar task, but with 2 vanishing points. Again we focused on a cuboid shape. We had to follow the same concept of drawing only horizontal and vertical lines between the perspective lines to create the basic lines of a 3D object.

VP 3

Then we used 3 vanishing points. This gives the object an aspect of height. This is shown in the 2 images below:

I enjoyed this task because I have seen things like perspective drawing, and I have not understood what the lines are for of how they are used. This lesson taught me how they can build an object and alter a viewpoint. I used a HB pencil and a ruler. I found all of these tasks a challenge because it is complicated and I found it hard to get my head around, however I found it was very interesting as I was really learning a new technique. This will help me to realistically construct landscapes in the future and alter the way an object can be viewed.

Perspective landscape

Then we were set a task to create a landscape using perspective lines. Initially I chose to create a single building looking at it from a lower perspective. But over time, as I started to put it onto paper, I wasn’t happy with the way it was looking, therefore I changed the design and what I wanted to achieve.

It was at this point, I changed my mind and decided to go from having a piece with only one building in it, to using the left side of the building as the front of a shop, then create buildings around that then make the piece look like a towns high street. It was also here when I realised the piece of paper I was using, wasn’t big enough for me to be able to draw perspective lines for some of the building to fit on, therefore, I moved to a bigger work space and placed more pieces of paper around my piece, so that I could draw more perspective lines. Here are the images that show the change in design and the development of the test piece:

I didn’t enjoy this part of the task as much because I struggled to build the piece, as it began to get busier with more buildings which started to disorientate me. I used an HB pencil and a ruler for this task.

Facial Proportions

Initial diagram

This morning we began to do facial portraits. We each started off by sketching a basic face shape (an upside down egg) very lightly onto our page. From here we added a vertical and a horizontal line halfway through the face, creating a plus symbol through the centre of the face. The horizontal line is to position the eyes. After this, a line was added underneath the chin, then a line was added to show the base of the nose, halfway between the eyes line, and the chin line. A third down from the nose line and the chin line, a line is added for the lips to be put on.

After adding all of these lines, the facial features were added. To start off, the nose was drawn, then the lips, however there has to be space for tweaking. This is because the corners of the lips should line up with the centres of the eyes, the space between the eyes should be the size of an additional eye and the base of the ears should line up with the base of the nose, and the top of the ears should line up with the centre of the eyes.

Here is my final piece that shows all the proportions with the lines in place:

I enjoyed this task because it really helped me remember how to generally sketch out the necessary proportions for portraits. This will help me to correctly build the basic structure of my future portraits.

Grey-scale portrait

After doing the proportions piece, we then had to put our knowledge to work. We chose a photo either, one of the models that was placed on the projector or a photo of our own. I chose a photo I had of myself. I carefully and lightly sketched out the basic facial shape and the lines for the proportions. After this, I took more time to readjust the face shape to make it less like a general oval and more like my own face shape. From this point, I drew in my hair line, eyes, eye brows, nose and lips – I did not add my ears because my hair would cover them when I would add it in. Then I added in shading and definition.

I loved doing this portrait of myself because I wasn’t simply looking at the camera with a general expression, I was pulling a bit a funny face, so it was fun to express my character. I used HB, 2B and 6B pencils, as I find I can achieve and adapt the marks I make on the piece. I enjoyed sketching out the proportions, but I also really enjoyed drawing my eyes on the piece. When I have drawn eyes in the past, I have always struggled to really capture a realistic look, however for the first time, they turned out well which I was really happy about. From the way I learned to make my eyes more realistic, I will be able to make my future pieces that have eyes on them, to look somewhat realistic.

Here are the images which show the development of my grey scale portrait:

Mark making and Tonal drawing

Today we were asked why is drawing important? and we looked at tonal drawing/application technique. We were asked to do multiple tasks which represent some of the techniques and different aspects of drawing. These included; mark marking based on a statement to describe the type of marks, tonal drawings and shading such as focusing on a specific object and the way light effects its tone, and different techniques of applying marks to an object to create tone.

Why is drawing important?

We were asked this question and initially everybody struggled to give a clear answer. However, after being given some hints and watched a video, answers began to appear. These answers include:

• It explains something
• A method of communication
• There are no rules
• It is a basic idea that acts as a foundation to build on
• It educates and trains he visual eye
• Increases hand eye coordination
• It can answer questions that may be hard to answer with words
• It is a key part of the design process
• It is a universal language
• It shows how a shape is formed, and how things connect together

Task 1 – Mark Making

In this task, we had to make marks on a sheet depending on the statement that was written in each box. Some of the statements included:

• Lines like rain
• Lines like grass
• Lines jagged as rocks

I found this task fun, but in some aspects quite challenging. This was because it seemed simple to start with to draw “lines like ocean waves” then as it progressed, I realised some of the lines could be drawn in a different way to what the statement intended. The lines could also be altered and drawn in different ways depending on the way you thought of the statement. For this task I used a HB pencil for the basic lines & pencil crayons for colour. I enjoyed drawing basically everything as it challenged me to really think about what kind of lines actually do define subjects. For example “Lines like the rings in a puddle” really made me think about what kind of lines actually create the shape and form of puddle rings. I learnt that subjects that we think have a really basic form, are actually made up by much more complex and detailed lines than is assumed on first glance. This will help me in future drawing work because I will look at subjects for their actual and correct shape rather than guessing the kind of lines that I think would create the form.

Task 2 – Tonal Drawing

In this task, we learnt how to create tone within a drawing. We started out the task by colouring in boxes that show a tonal scale from black to white. Then we went on to colour in another tonal scale but instead of it being in boxes it was in a gradient so the tones blended smoothly together. This part of the task taught us how there are a range of shades that will help represent the tone and form of a subject. The different shades will be used to show where the light affects an object.

Then we had to apply the different shades to a sphere. We added a symbol which showed what direction the light was coming from, therefore symbolising which part of the sphere is going to be mainly caught by the light. I chose to put the light above the sphere to the left, therefore it would cast a shadow under the bottom right of the sphere. This whole task was interesting to me as it really showed me how the slightest change in pressure on my pencil really did make a difference. I enjoyed this task because it helped me to understand how to draw the impact of light onto a subject. I believe this will help me with my future drawings because it will affect and improve how realistic my pieces are. For this task I used a HB pencil.

Task 3 – Application Technique

For the next task we continued to show how light affects a drawing and the shading that has to be put in place. However for this piece, we used different techniques of applying the tone. The 4 application techniques we looked at were; hatching, cross-hatching, blending and stippling. The above sheet shows hatching, cross-hatching and stippling. We chose not to look at blending, as we believed the previous task already covered blending. On this sheet, we started out by doing the 3 techniques in pencil on the 3 balls on the right. Then we decided to move on to how the light and tone was applied to a more complex object using fine liner coloured pens. I found this task fun and interesting because I really had to think carefully about where, and how heavily, I was applying my marks. Again, I believe this will help my future work to look more realistic as light can be shown easily with these techniques.

After this, we were then given some blank templates of different objects that would reflect and show light in different ways. I chose the kettle to do represent the tone and light impact on. I chose this because a kettle has a fully reflective surface which I knew would be a challenge to recreate on paper. I enjoyed doing this piece because I had to find reflective surfaces and see how they looked in the light, to be able to create the tone and shades on the kettle. Here is the piece: