Week 8: Still Life. Reflective surfaces

The detailed drawing represents a session study of reflective surfaces, created in about 15 minutes in pencil. First of all, light falls in varied manners on all objects, either metallic, hard or glass surfaces and is fairly well depicted in all examples, it is fair to say it could perhaps be improved on the cylindrical one. Refraction is also obvious in the relation between the bottle and the spherical object behind it, the two objects also create the intended depth. The overlapping tends to be favourable in most places and adds to the desired three dimensional effect, although on the right side where the vase and the cylindrical object meet, there seems to be some poorly constructed composition. Second of all, as far as those objects concern, they are well drawn and show a multitude of kinds of shapes. The table cloth could use more detail through the form of more shading and the shadows cast by the objects should be more contrasted as should be those of the overall picture where light does not hit any surface. All in all, the drawing manages to portray the desired effect of reflective textures.

Week 7: Still Life. Soft and hard surfaces & texture

The quick 10 minute pencil study is intended to show the effect of light on textures belonging to fruits such as apples or oranges. These surface types required a naturalistic approach which meant using hatching to depict as accurately as possible the tonal contrast and the relationship between objects. There seems to be no issue in the way light distinctively reflects on the apple’s and on the orange’s surfaces, other than the obvious deformed spherical lines that give shape to them, which should be toned down where light hits. Other than that fact, texture could be greatly improved on the apples but only in a chromatic sense, colours being the only improvement that could truly work on differentiating their surfaces and a good background where their shadow could appear.

Week 6: Still Life. Natural and man made forms

This detailed pencil drawing took less than 30 minutes to complete though it is far from a true finished piece. It depicts the relation between three glass made objects that create a compelling still life image, with important elements such as light and texture being taken into consideration. Lines and different styles of hatching play a significant role in creating the illusion of an actual texture, which in this case are three types of glass, that reflect and refract light differently. Therefore, I tried to overlap the two glasses and double the effect of light on this type of surfaces. It is fair to say that more hatching, thus more detail, would have greatly enhanced the appeal of the drawing, moreover three other significant problems are the space between the bottle and the glasses which ruins the sense of unity of the entire picture, the obvious line asymmetry in the case of the neck of the bottle and of the taller glass object and the missing background which makes one believe the objects are located into thin air.

Week 5: Directed Study Week

In the directed study week we had the liberty of portraying varied landscapes according to our own choice. Therefore, I believed it was necessary to improve my one point and two point perspective skills since examples are easily found in nature and surrounding areas, but mostly in different viewing angles of buildings. 

The first image is a 4 minute charcoal sketch, created to show the illusion of depth by the use of simple lines and no other interfering elements. Pluses are the expected foreshortening between the upper parts, from the one located in the area of the focal point, to the one disappearing or shrinking on the right and the simple use of darker tones. On the down side, it is very much an incomplete drawing, it falls short of a landscape since it does not hold other focal points such as objects near by. To add to this, we see no texture that could provide a sense of what the materials of the building are like or a simple light source that proves helpful to the drawing.

In contrast, the second image seems to convey more space organizational elements to a certain degree. It insufficiently depicts the rules of one point perspective, since the lines barely converge to the point where the focal point draws our attention to, but that happens because the shapes of the buildings and the angle are quite deceiving. Because of the inconsistency between lines in the foreground and the ones in the background, it is not clear whether all the lines are parallel or meet in a point. The problem being that the road is not straight, as it creates a type of curve that greatly impacts the position of the buildings. If I were to correct it, there would be an attempt at transforming the drawing into a two point perspective one. Another issue is the sporadic lack of parallelism between certain lines or the missing outer objects that would improve the idea of the image being a landscape. On the upside, it hold a greater level of detail than the first charcoal sketch and actually sticks by the rule of the foreshortening, with smaller objects in the distance, to create a massive illusion of depth.

Week 4: Natural Landscapes, Light & Texture

One of our session’s detailed light and texture drawings, done using pencil in 10-15 minutes of extensive work. It’s purpose was to show the casting of light on a particular material, by use of various hatching techniques as it can be seen in the image. The lines depend on the direction of the light and are done in accordance to it with the exception of the upper part which, though it does not hold any shading, it clearly shows too hard of a line since the light source is closest to it and thus, would fade away the dark tones and create instead the lowest contrasted part of the drawing.

Despite the fact, lights and shadows create a good contrast without unbalancing the white and black content, with little cast shadow as seen on the actual object. Unfortunately, the texture is barely represented and could be mistaken by any type of cloth material, but surely does not detriment the overall veridic sense of the object.

Week 3: Composition

The five panes represent five different landscape perspectives done during session, each of them taking in average five to ten minutes to complete, depending on the difficulty of the angle, very little on the level of detail or of spatial organizational elements. Composed using charcoal, the images were intended to clearly show the rule of thirds in application. The first and the fourth images are less dynamic than the second one, but clearly illustrate the third division concept, whereas the latter uses linear perspective as a way of creating a rudimentary form of the illusion of depth, by the positioning of the objects. The third and the last picture convey three dimensional space through two point linear perspective.

All of the drawings are a mere attempt of studying line, perspective and most intentionally composition, though they barely reach the goal since the vantage points are not the most favourable and the lack of foreshortening techniques clearly detriment the desired depth effect. Also, there is no shading, no true detail which could greatly improve the realistic feel of the objects.

  

Week 2: Landscape - line & perspective

This is a page of directed study, three 2 minute quick sketches done without the use of a ruler but in pencil in the case of the more detailed one, charcoal, in the case of the other two attempts of understanding two point perspective. Though simplistic looking, the intent was to draw as accurately and correctly as possible the lines and shapes in order to emphasise the different perspective techniques, such as foreshortening since the objects seem to be getting smaller as further away we get from the points where all converging lines meet and closer we get to the vanishing ones. In the preparatory charcoal drawings, the lines are stretched enough to follow the implied lines of the two vanishing points, while also making sure the other lines are not erroneously drawn and respect the implied space conventions. 

Although the charcoal sketches are obviously flawed since the objects are portrayed either from above or from a lower than the horizontal line vantage point with no direct relation or connection with one another, they served as preparation for the pencil experiment which does obey rules of parallelism in most of the construction of the objects. Another asset would have been adding a type of shading that would have brought forth the closeness and the distance by use of darker tones in the first case and lighter ones in the latter, as well as patterns of texture which would have given a realistic feel to the pencil drawing.