Our first topic of the year was figure drawing. Primarily, I knew nothing about properly drawing human figures as I would always eye-ball the model and draw what I thought I saw. This is clearly evident in my first figure drawing at the beginning of the semester. Here, you could see that the proportions were completely off: the shoulders and upper body parts were too wide and the legs were squashed and shortened. Overall my first pieced showed how much I needed to work on in terms of correct measurement, proportion, accuracy, and etc.

In order to tackle my problems with proportion and measurements, I broke down my problems into smaller, specific categories to allow myself to focus on certain areas. These included the foreshortening of shoulders, thickness and length of legs, finding relationships between each part of the body, angling arms and hands correctly, and checking the thickness of necks and fingers. In the first few weeks, we began to develop from using one basic under layer marker to using several markers to tell apart the layers and build upon them. I really found this effective as it allowed me to see what part of the figure I needed to fix precisely. Here’s one of the practice drawings I did with 3 or more markers:

Compared to the first drawing, it’s clearly evident that my measuring skills have improved quite a bit as the upper body was in proportion to the lower body part. By using different colours, I was able to tell which parts I needed to be fixed and which parts needed to be outlined. In this piece I could’ve improved the right knee as it looks dislocated due to the wrong placing of it. Also I needed to keep in mind not to make the feet too small. After a few more weeks had passed by, we were introduced to a different style of measuring. Previously, our main method of measuring was using the head of the model and counted how many heads the entire body was. However, the crate technique showed a more precise way of measuring by boxing the figure by parts of their body. This showed positive results in my third drawing:

Although the angling of the arms are off, the length of the legs were proportionally correct. My arms were angled in the wrong way because the shoulders needed to be foreshortened. Foreshortening the action of intentionally making some parts of body smaller or bigger than the rest to create different perspectives. I believe the crate technique shows some foreshortened elements (eg. like in the legs) however, it was clear that I still needed to work on perspective drawing and angles. As I kept on drawing figures, I found that my speed had increased a considerable amount such that my first drawing, which took about 10 minutes to measure, has now drastically changed to only 5 minutes. This is mainly because I got used to measuring correctly and quickly, allowing me to move on and try other drawing styles.
We also experimented with different mediums such as charcoal, and erasers for only highlights. As I’ve never used charcoal before, applying it to figure drawing was a real struggle. You can clearly see this on my 4th figure drawing, as the shoulders were placed too high, the arms were bent awkwardly, and the length of the legs where too short:

I also think that I used too much white chalk as highlights – showing me that less is more. In this second charcoal drawing, I focused less on linear lines, which turned out to be actually interesting:

This taught me that I can still express form even when its not in linear shapes and lines. We also experimented with continuous line drawing, we showed me that figures can also be expressed through wirely and wavy lines (this also eased my brain a bit, as let me draw loose lines instead of constricted shapes and forms).

Throughout the course I also learned the importance of negative and positive space, how the use of space can convey different impressions. I especially felt this was true when I did my research and compare and contrast on Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.

I found that Schiele’s works played with different angles and perspectives, making the figures more interesting. His figures were also sketchy and were portrayed with exaggerations to some body parts. This taught me that the figures didn’t have to alway to be coloured in perfectly and realistic. Klimt, on the other hand, portrayed his works with extreme detail and colour, which was seen as a rebellion against the traditional academic art of his time. Between the two artists I preferred Schiele more than Klimt as his wirely drawings were both mysterious and appealing to me (and had made me want to challenge myself to apply that similar technique to my pieces). However, not wanting to only apply Schiele’s style, I decided to make my final piece a mix between Klimt and Schiele’s styles. I decided to use acrylic paint to paint the face and hands realistically, and only draw the creases/ outline the clothes with soft pastel to create a sketchy-feel. For the face and hands, I decided to do a diluted burnt umber layer as my under painting, and build my skin layers on warm and cold complementary layers.

As I have no experience with acrylic paint, I did some research for my self about mixing skin colours and building layers. Here are several pictures where I got inspiration for the face and skin tones:

Although this unit was a huge struggle, I believe my strengths are the speed in which I finish my measuring because compared to my first drawing, my speed improved by about 5 minutes. In addition, my accuracy has improved quite considerably, as my figures are no longer squashed into the page. My use of spaces has also improved as I started to consider what the effects would be in different spaces. I found that as the weeks passed by, I had an easier time measuring the figure correctly and eye balling certain parts. Especially my relationship between different body parts has also helped me define how much in proportion each part is (helping me create a more realistic figure drawing). However, I still believe that there are so many areas where I still lack skill in. For instance, I need to improve foreshortening body parts as you can see in the outline of my final piece, the right leg is not in proportion to the left dangling hand. In the original photo, the right boot is seen foreshortened to be in line with the fingers of the left hand.

The right shoulder also needs to be foreshortened and as the shoulders are at an angle (which could be why my hand and boot aren’t in line). I also need to keep in mind to not rush when measuring, and take my time to measure proportions accurately. I think this is especially true because I tried to rush with my measurements with my final piece as I was excited to start painting with acrylic paint.

Overall I really enjoyed working with figure drawing, although it was an extremely challenging unit. From learning the basic rules of measuring proportions to working with different mediums, this unit has really helped me grow as an aspiring artist, and has opened my artistic vision even more. Because of the unit, I feel more confident in drawing models and I hope to experiment with a larger variety of mediums including human figures. Not only have I accomplished in fixing most of ny earlier problems (ie. legs/accuracy), I also wish to use my knowledge to go deeper and explore on the subject of human nature and beauty. I want teach myself new skills based on what I already know from my figure drawing unit so that I can use human figures to express and portray different emotions such as this photo on the right: I also want to experiment with expressive colours and vibrant strokes to define form human figures without lines and shapes like these pieces by Francoise Nielly

. I also wish to see my figure drawing skills applied in different mediums such as watercolour with loose lines and curves and digital works (looking at negative + positive spaces)

EDITED: Here’s the final piece I made for my figure unit.

Moving on from our second unit on pastels, our third unit explored the world of painting. To begin with, our class was provided a planning sheet, in which we were supposed to record all of our findings as we researched possible inspirations. However, we were constrained to only two themes; still life, or landscape paintings. Out of these two, I chose to base my final composition as a still life painting. Once I chose my theme, I then began to investigate different still life paintings, until I came across a Russian painter named “Kazmir Malevich”, whom in my opinion, stood out the most. I was especially intrigued by how he used strong, bold outlines to define the shapes of his fruits in his painting.
This was because the outlines drew attention to the fruits and made the colours stand out more. Then I started to look into the possible candidates for my composition. Coincidently, I came across a photo-realistic painting of an egg, which later on inspired me to make that as my final composition. Vic Vicini’s works mostly revolve around realistic foods, which in my case is a little far-fetched, because my style of painting is more expressive and colourful. However, I researched more about how Vicini uses shines, and wet-on-wet blending to paint the yolk, since I believed it would help me create a more interesting piece if I incorporate a bit of expressionism, and a bit of realism. Through my practice works, I discovered several things. For instance, I found out that orange yolks compliment the outline better, since blue and orange are complimentary colours. Also, the highlights on the yolk should be done after it dries, instead of wet and wet (creates a more shinier effect).

While I progressed through my painting, I encountered several problems that slowed done my process. These include the egg white, the outlining, and blending. In my opinion, the egg white was a challenging part to paint since there were many shines/highlights that reflected of the white in the photograph I based my composition on. So at first I separated the white into two parts; the whiter-white with the yolk spilling a little into it, and the shinier, crunched white. This established the different textures I would apply on each part. For the first white, I used a mix of blue, green, and white on the ratio of 1:1:4, however, the white turned into a dirty gray. For the other white, I tried applying a bunch of spots to create a crunchy effect, however, this too created a filthy look which I disliked, so then I repainted the whites entirely to start over. Then this time I decided to use the complimentary colour scheme and used yellowish colour for the first white, and a light purple for the second half to make a contrast. I then added the spots again, but this time, I made sure to smudge/blur some to make an impression that the highlights trail long the entire length of the white. Also the blending came as a minor problem. Unlike other medias, paints are harder to blend with one another after it dries. Therefore, when I need to add a extra colour, it creates a huge contrast.

Although I had a simple composition, I believe there are many places I could really improve on. For instance, toasted bread was challenging to paint. At first I attempted to expressed the crunchiness of the toast by added some spots on to them, however, I’m afraid that by adding too many spots I’ve denatured the balance it had with the spotted egg white. I also believe that my egg white could have been better because it doesn’t really express the highlights and crunchiness of the white. However, I’m genuinely proud of my yolk, which turned out to be better than I expected. That is probably because I had enough paint on my brush and I used contoured lines to form the shape. The blue outlines are also part of my pride. Taking inspiration from Malevich, I used them effectively to bring a twist to my painting. Strangely, I feel that because of the blue outlines, the piece is actually more balanced than if I had painted without it. Also I use different shades of blue for the outlines to bring different impression and attention to certain parts. Ironically, I learned that for some parts, its better to use orange straight out of the bottle for a brighter effect. This applies to the yolk, and to bits of the crunchy sidelines of the egg white. If I compare this to the piece I did for a painting unit in seventh grade, I can really see the improvement I’ve made on the gradation, wet-on-wet blending, textures, colours, and etc.

For further artistic improvement I believe more research is necessary. This is due to the fact that I spent more time focusing on perfecting the yolk and outlines (things which I’ve already practiced), instead of researching more on minor things such as the highlights, toast, and many more. Next time, I should also keep in mind of the thickness, and how it can create different impressions (i.e. The outline). Daily practice is also necessary to improve. However, as painting takes much preparation, materials, and space, it is difficult to carry on practicing painting techniques. Therefore, to resolve this problem I suggest that I watch tutorials to refresh my mind, go after school to the art room to paint sometimes, and even try painting online. That way, the next time I have a painting unit, I can come more prepared and skillful than I was before.

As my final composition for the Pastel Unit, I created a piece based on a photograph which consisted a kayak in a lake in the foreground, and some rocks and a forest in the background. Of course being a completely new field for me to work with, at first I had some troubles trying to understand the mechanics of pastels. In order to attain a better understanding of it, I gathered some information by researching about pastels and how pastel artists use various techniques to create a wonderful piece. However I realised that in order to master the ways of the pastel, I would have to know exactly what it is to start off. Results of the researching has taught me that there are two main types of pastels – oil and soft. Soft pastels were ‘chalk-like’ sticks that were composed out of powdered pigments held together with an aqueous gum binder. Oil pastels on the other hand, had more resemblance to a wax crayon and were made pigment mixed with a non-drying oil and wax binder.

While I experimented with both pastels, I felt that the oil pastels had a more buttery feeling and created a thicker impression, whereas the soft pastels with light and left softer marks on to the paper. Yet I preferred soft pastels over the oil pastels because of how it blended the colours more naturally and it created a more colourful appearance – in my opinion. Unfortunately I soon learned that by only applying one layer of soft pastel and smoothing it out with a finger, it erases the textures and details, and ruins the whole drawing by making it appear more blurry. What this taught me was that not all parts of the drawing had to be smudged to blend the colours in. Instead, it would be wiser to layer the colours from dark to light to create a stronger impression and by applying more colours it creates a brighter atmosphere, making the whole piece look more lively with colour. Also I discovered from my research and experimenting that by using the sides/edges of the pastel, it creates finer details especially in the trees, for instance, to produce an impression that the trees were real, as if you can reach out and touch them. What made this impression possible was also in the way I used the edges of the pastel. In order to make the trees look life-like, I applied short strokes/ticks to express the leafs sprouting from the branches, scumbling to represent the vivid flowers, and curves to illustrate the shape of the rocks. These techniques have helped me greatly to convey the naturalness of the scenery to the audience/viewer as if they were part of the scene as one.

During his or her journey throughout a drawing, an artist is bound to meet a few obstacles that would make them stop and figure out what the problem is. It’s safe to say that in my case, I’ve encountered quite a few problems whilst I drew my piece. My first problem hit me as soon as I finished drawing the kayak. While I was planning out my layout with a light-beige pastel it did not occur to me that my drawing may of been a little of scale. Since I found the middle of my photograph and the paper, naturally I just drew the objects according to how it was laid out in the photo. Of course, after I finished my boat I realised that several things were off. For starters, the tip of the boat was extremely pointed compared to the photograph. Secondly, the kayak was positioned to be mostly on the shore. In my drawing, however, the kayak is mainly placed in the lake. This threw off the rest of the proportions – such as the rocks. But seeing that this was a summative project, I improvised like any other artist would do, and added more rocks to balance out the rest of the drawing. I also changed parts of the layout of the trees to blend in with the other parts of the piece. Another problem I stumbled upon was something that frankly bothered me quite a lot. After a week later or so when we have our next art class, I often find that the colours on my drawing faded away, sometimes even smudged, thus making my piece look fainter than before. This could be happen because of how I stored my work with the other’s on a shelf, leaving them to hastily pull out the bunch of drawings when the next class comes, thus smudging mine in the process. However there is also a possibility that my work had lost some colour due to the cover of paper I kept on top of my drawing. Since I always used that cover, the colour eventually became fainter as the cover absorbed it from my drawing. To fix this problem, I layered over the kayak and the water again in hopes of recovering the colour I lost, and I threw away my old cover in exchange of a new one – something I should of done previously.

If it was one thing I struggled to draw, it was the water. Upon observing the pastel work from previous grades and mine, I noticed that the water was something mostly everyone included in their drawing. Even more, it was something that most people drew beautifully. What made the water appear extraordinary was the reflections and highlights, the texture/waves, the value and tones in the water made it look natural. In order to achieve a satisfactory outcome of the water I turned to Mr. Curkovic who advised that I should layer the lighter colours, which would be the orange and yellow reflecting from the boat, and then blend it in with the darker colours such as the greens, browns, and etc. He also taught me to first, pick out all of the colours that have some resemblance to orange, yellow, green, and brown to see if I can utilize those colours to create strong impressions of the values in the water. Creating the waves was also a hard thing to do. I tried layering the white/gray highlights with the dark green water in an attempt to recreate the ripples seen in the picture, but alas I failed in doing so by smoothing the pastel marks to blend with the water. To improve the waves, I simply stopped the smudging and instead layered the colours on top of each other, thus creating a somewhat satisfying lake.

Although there are many areas where I would improve, I believe that my piece has its fair share of strengths and weaknesses. In opinion my strengths would include, the trees (leafs), the shore/gravel, and parts of the boat. I believe my trees were one of my few strengths because of how I used short strokes and layered colours to capture the image of the trees. If you notice especially on the left of the forest, one can observe the different colours and textures applied to this tree. To create the trees, I first plan out a faint outline with a green pastel (preferably the same green pastel in which I will use later on for the leafs), and then light sketch parts of the tree with short strokes. Then I use a dark blue pastel to over lap the previously drawn sketch to create shadows, which becomes clearer later on. By applying the dark blue pastel, I can then collect other green pastels of different tones and begin to layer them one by one to create a three-dimensional perspective. Once I finish adding all the greens, I would then apply faint yellow strokes on the tips of the leafs to illustrate where the sun is shining from. I also kept note to often change the direction of my leafs, as not all leafs face the same way. While I was working on my pastel work, I came across a different field of art that requires colours and similar mechanics of a pencil, otherwise known as colour pencils. I across this field because of a drawing, in which the artist used colour pencils to compose a beautiful piece of art. This particular drawing inspired me to use colour pencils. Of course at first, I had no idea how to use the pencils so I began researching on how to draw with colour pencils, watching videos of colour pencil artists drawing, tutorials, drawings made by colour pencils, and etc. Bit by bit, I began to understand the ways of the colour pencil and decided to see if I can apply the knowledge I attained from google, on to actual paper. Surprisingly, the result was not that bad. Now even if this little story had nothing to do with the reflection I’m currently writing about, the knowledge I achieved from all that research actually helped me quite a lot whilst I worked on my pastel project. By researching and practicing on coloured pencils, I learned how to mix different colours (even if they are colours you normally wouldn’t use) to create more natural-looking objects, such as the rocks. The rocks are a great example of this because of the variety of colours I used to make them appear more edgier. Before this project, I would of thought that rocks are only blobs composed out of grays, blues, and white. But by using my knowledge of pastels and coloured pencils, I can now look at a picture of a rock and point of at least ten different colours that can be used to express the rocks.

One of my main weaknesses in this piece would be the rocks and how it contrasted with the gravel, distribution of the entire layout, and the water. When I first drew the rocks, they appeared more heavily applied and darker, which made them stand out. But by adding the gravel, the rocks seem to appear lighter and in some parts, the rocks seem to blend too much with the sand that it looks like it is part of the shore. Another weakness of mine was the balance of the entire composition. This was particularly evident in the forest where one side had more trees and brighter colours, it made the right half of the forest appear darker than it really is, there by drawing more attention to half of the forest and creating a somewhat unbalanced piece.

Looking back to where I first used soft pastel, I can guarantee that I have improved over the course of this unit. Especially the various uses and techniques of soft pastels, is something that will become useful to me in future projects. But unfortunately as time passes, I will probably forget some of the knowledge I gained from the unit. That is why in order to remember the techniques and improve furthermore, I should every now and then use soft pastels to create drawings, watch tutorials to see if I can then improve my skills, and make notes on whenever I finish a piece or find a drawing that inspires so that I can compare and contrast it with my art to find errors where I can improve. Most importantly, however, I want to improve even more on my uses of colours and textures of soft pastels, so if I have to work with pastels again, I would have a broader knowledge and skills to apply.

Still Life Compo.

For this project I created a composition which consists of a rabbit, a camera and a watch in the foreground, my kitchen(cutting board, tap and my mom’s t-shirt) in the background. As I observed my composition photograph I took note of the different tones shown on the foreground, mostly focusing on the objects and the shadows. Since the camera consisted more of the darker tones compared to the others, I started my drawing by shading the inside of the lens then working my way up to the rest of the camera. At first I struggled with the drawing the camera lens and the layers around it in the proper proportion because some of the circles were thicker than others and by the time I realized that I drew them wrong it deformed my camera. Using a 4B, I shaded the lens and used my eraser to show highlights. While drawing at home, I often found that instead of leaving a blank space for highlights, it was better to use an eraser to rub the reflection on to the objects. That way it looked more natural compared to a wobbly white spot in the middle of a shaded part. Another thing I learnt while drawing was using soft tissues helps spread the graphite across the paper and blends in well with the other colours. I prefer this method more because whenever I sometimes, out of old habit, use my fingers to blend the tones, my fingers would turn all black and the sweat from fingers would smudge the lead, creating unnecessary blotches. So due to my unfortunate experiences with finger smudges, I used a tissue (more than a tortillon or rubbing stump) to blend the shaded areas of the rabbit to make it appear life-like. I didn’t use much of the tortillon because it hardly blends with the rest and took time to use. Another difficulty I came across was the when I realized my background had too many things going around. What I meant was that I photographed my composition in front of my kitchen without noticing it. That meant I had to include all the details from the back, which wouldn’t be much of a problem is only my camera was developed enough to take clear pictures. For that reason, the background was dark and faded so I had to imagine what I would see there and created imaginary objects. This project has taught me new techniques that helped me develop my pencil work/ sketching skills such as using more than seven tones gives more gradation thus making it look 3 dimensional and realistic. Another tip I learned was the use of the ultra black tone. By using the said ultra black tone, it gives the picture more dept and yet again makes it look realistic. In my opinion, I definitely improved my shading/ blending skills because I can clearly see the difference from my work from the previous drawings, compared to the piece I did for this topic. You can hardly see pencil lines and the values in the rabbit’s arms and neck give it am 3 dimensional illusion. I also improved my measuring accuracy, which is evident if you compare my crate/bottle drawings which were all slanted and out of proportion. In the drawing, the camera and rabbit are both actually the same size as seen in the photo, which could only mean that my measuring skills have improved. The next time I repeat this project, I will make sure to choose a background that does not included thousands of small details and maybe instead I could take my picture of the composition again a wall or hold a blank sheet of paper behind it. Also if I were to choose the exact same composition for next time, I’d make improve my watch because unlike the other objects, It was definitely out of perspective. Another thing that bothers me is the camera’s shadow which seems a little flat because of this one part which is darker than the rest. Finally looking back at my piece, I feel that the table is a little too light so I would shade it one tone darker.