charcoal still life presented with a nod to Cubism

We made an A3 page of experimental masking, mark making and mark removing to give a sense of what charcoal can do.  

This was followed by making several, small, observational drawings of a guitar and case set up as a still life.  The nearby chairs, curtain ties and fretwork radiator covers were included for drawing too.

Once made, the smaller drawings were grouped into cubism-like compositions, giving us the opportunity to talk about the work of Braque and Picasso.

Charcoal can be a tricky beast, particularly working small scale.  I'm fortunate to have been able to practise since my student days others here, although not totally new to charcoal, have not.  They managed brilliantly.  

demo

demo

John

John

Mike

Mike

Monica

Monica

Suzanne

Suzanne

soft pastels: textural landscapes

After experimenting with different mark making, we made small, textural landscapes on different coloured and texture card.  The following drawings are A6 which is a quarter A4 (the most common paper size).

Messy process - marvellous results.  

Very well done everyone!

Suzanne 2

Suzanne 1

Monica 2

Monica 1

Mike 2

Mike 1

John 2

John 1

demo A6

demo A4

a decorative article aka a doll which isn't a toy

After several warm-up exercises, we used pencil and A3 paper to have a go at drawing a doll.  This particular doll is not a toy but a "decorative article" with a hand painted, porcelain face.

We considered the proportions of the doll and how it differed from an adult and a child human figure.  We considered which aspects might make it sinister to some folk and... what could be in her bag?  

This was not an easy subject to undertake but as always everyone rose to the challenge.  The impressive results are below.  

Well done lovely people!

 

Suzanne

Monica

Mike

John

demo

 

watercolour, mark making, experimental leaves and a cat

Watercolour is a tricky medium.  To achieve simplicity can be quite complicated and never has the term, "happy accidents" been more true.

We talked about brushes, weight of line, working wet on dry, wet on wet and lifting out colour.  We looked briefly at the colour wheel which will be revisited and making muddy colours.  We also tried different textural processes and at the end, added ink.

Some really interesting work was made.  Very well done everyone! 

Monica 1

Monica 2 [sometimes a leaf needs to be a cat]

Mike 1

Mike 2

John 1

John 2

Derrick 1

Derrick 2

demo 2

demo 1