Exercise 2: Experimenting with Texture

The first part of the exercise I tried was the frottage. I went around the house looking for all sorts of surfaces to use. I also took some inspiration from the examples given in the exercise. Some failed completely however and so I did not put them in my sketchbook because no pattern or texture could be seen and it just looked like a scribble.

When I began experimenting with creating new textures I started off with doing it directly in my sketchbook but soon noticed that the watercolour was seeping onto the next page so I decided to make them on separate pieces of paper instead. The feathers, flowers and dandelion seeds were inspired by the textures i was able to create. Not all my experiments came out as well as I would have liked but overall I enjoyed just messing around with my drawing materials.

note: my painted dandelion seeds did not show well in the photos. I used white watercolour on slightly browned paper and in person it shows better. I thought while I was making them that using white might be an issue so I made some seeds with 2H and 2B pencils which show up better in the picture.

After experimenting with textures I went about finding objects with different textures to draw. I did the shell, granadilla and paintbrush in (2H, 2B, 4B) pencil and tried to portray their textures as well as possible. I then decided to do the rock and acorn in black ink using three different sized nibs. I liked the way I was able to create texture using my nibs and personally prefer my ink drawings over my pencil drawings.

  • rock
  • acorn
  • shell
  • granadilla
  • paintbrush

Exercise 1: Experimenting with expressive lines and marks

This exercise took me a good few days to complete as I found myself struggling to completely submerge myself into some of the emotions. I kept a blank page on my drawing board at all timed so that I’d always be prepared to start drawing immediately.

Grief was inspired by the news of the death of a family friend who I’d known for most of my life. At first I felt somewhat guilty for using her death as inspiration to draw for merely an exercise but I decided to think of it as a dedication it to her instead.

To become calm I decided to take a nap and then meditate for a while and asked my family to not disturb me for risk of changing my mood.

I did anger after my brother’s significant other finished all our yogurt (we are all huge yogurt fans in our house), then bought more yogurt and forbid anyone from eating it because she “payed for it herself”. I’ll stop there before I go on a rant.

I managed to achieve joy by fangirling over my favourite book series and listening to my favourite music.

grief
calm
anger
joy

Exercise 1: Warm-up – temporary drawings.

The first one I tried in this exercise was the suggested soap in the sink activity. I started off with green dish soap then went in with my orange shampoo. After realizing that I couldn’t control the patterns made, I decided to leave it to chance. The way the colours reacted with each other, not blending unless provoked, and how the patterns continued to shift as gravity took over was an interesting display of temporary line-work.

soap in sink

After playing around with the soap I decided to experiment a bit with ink. I dripped a singe drop in hoping it would mix with the drops of water sitting on the walls of the sink but it only made one solid black line. I then got close and blew at the line of ink and to my pleasant surprise this happened. It was as though small patches of sink became ink-phobic so to speak and in those patches there were small lines like the veins on a leaf. I love experimentation with different mediums and sometimes very interesting things happen. Like with the soap as time went by the lines changed and so the second image is from a few minutes later.

ink in sink
a few minutes later

Next I want outside to look for natural temporary lines. At first I wanted to take a picture of the circular ripples in the pool but became entranced by the reflections in the water instead. I liked how with the ripples the reflection is never still and is constantly changing and so I decided to use it in this exercise.

reflection on water

When I was outside I caught a glimpse of the shadow of a tree on the wall. I thought of how shadows change and move with the sun and how the wind blowing through the trees cause their shadows to shift around.

shadows

This exercise has helped me see things differently as to what makes things permanent or temporary and how things can change and develop due to time of environmental changes.