Pancake Day!

It's pancake day! Time to make some tastey treats and eat them!

I tried cheering mum up by making her some for breakfast... she didn't seem to appreciate them very much. Probably wouldn't have even noticed it was pancake day if I hadn't made any..

Anyway, today signals that Lent is coming (starting tomorrow). What is everyone going to give up? Sweets? Chocolate? Coffee? Smoking? All those things that are bad for you?
I was thinking that it would be a nicer thing that rather than giving something up, maybe I could take up something, something thats good for me, or helps other people out or something... I havn't quite desided what it could be just yet though. Maybe take up some exercise.. make cakes for the homeless shelter.. give away free hugs? mmm, I think the whole 'free hug' thing has been far too overdone in recent years. I'm sure I will think of something good though!

Installations

 Here are a few pictures from the installations that were up. This first picture was done with ink in about 3 minutes so as you can see it's quite rushed and there isn't much in the way of depth. However I think doing quick sketches and drawings are good practice for if you have an image pop up in your head or see something while you're on the go, so you can record it down and then possibly rework it later if needs be. I also think that quick-sketches help you to develop your own artistic flare.

 We were given cardboard frames in which to focus down on certain parts of the installation. This picture was done with charcoal.

 This picture was done with acrylics at a slightly different angle to the one above it. I quite enjoy working with colour even though it can be easier to project the feeling of 3D with black and white as there is a limited pallet for shading- whereas with colour you have to think about shading in each colour you use as well. The section of this picture I like more is probably the bottom right hand corner, with the cloth draping over a pole.

 In the next series of pictures, I was sat at one side of this installation throughout, first using the focus frame and purple oil pastels to draw what I could see...

 ...then we used multiple colours once again, each colour belonging to different shade of the real installation. As I mentioned before, I do enjoy using colours in this way as it makes the whole picture just more exciting!

 Now we had to "zoom in" on an interesting part of the installation. I felt that the skull was probably the most interesting part of the installation that I was looking at as it had the most detail for different tones and shades.

 As I zoom into the installation, I can use the colours for more detail, not only using more colours but more shades of each colour as well.

In this last picture, I collaged the backing paper in order to make the overall image more imteresting. Then used chalk and charcoal on top (for the gray bits I mixed them together).

A few experiments

 I took an image of two people embracing on a windy day. Drew it in pencil and then painted a waterfall around them. Although again, I don't think the mix of pencil and paint works as the paint stands out too much compared to the pencil, letting the figures get lost in the chaos. I chose a waterfall to fall around the embracing figures as a representation of the chaos of life, whilst it can be very loud and scary, in order to live you must also embrace the chaos.

This is just a quick collage of a poster for the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy which I did using black paper, tissue paper, pastel on paper and lots and lots of glue.

a few more pictures

 These two pictures were drawn from photos. This top one was just pencil. The way the girl is covering her eyes as she looks away.. maybe she is upset. Maybe she's shielding herself from whatever it is infront of her. Maybe she's venturing down that tunnel in The Phantom of the Opera, keeping her hands at the height of her eyes so as not to be blinded? I think that was the reason for doing that.. anyway, what she is going through is open to interpretation.

In this picture, again from a photo, I desided to try out my acrylics to see how good i am at colour tone. I think the blue shirt came out quite well, and most of the of the skin colour came out well however I am clearly still having problems with the face. The eyes are not facing straight and the nose is a bit too thin, not to mention the lips are slightly lop-sided. But it's a working progress, and I think I'm getting better at it!

Hands

 Heres just a quick look at hands...

 This week at life drawing, we were pushing the way you think about creating a charcoal drawing by first covering the whole of the paper in charcoal (as you see in the background). We had those putty rubbers so that we could rub off the charcoal to carve out the highlights and details of the face.

 In order to get a more 3D feel to this drawing, we used curved lines. I think this is quite a good piece.. I'm not really sure why. Maybe I like the lines?

This picture was fun. As we can see I used coloured pastels. Each colour belongs to a different shade on the model. I think it just makes the whole picture more exciting, especially with the contrasting greens and reds.

Chalk, Charcoal and Ink

 So last night at life drawing we experimented a bit with ink, as you can see above. It was interesting trying to control the different shades of the ink. In the end I was mostly using watered down ink and layering coats in order to get the darker shades.

 This one I was rather proud of. Apart from the head being rather small compared to the body, I feel the body came out well.

 This image was ink straight onto the paper, without pencilling the outline first. I found this hard as whatever I marked down was perminant.

In this last image, we combined charcoal with white paint. There was a little ink thrown in there at the end as I was finishing up the thighs. The ink really helped to solidify the shadows around the legs. I feel that charcoal and white paint on its own doesn't quite mix well. The textures seem too different to work together without the ink to blend in the difference