Sitting on the bench at the other side of the crossroads from my house. Sunny day, nobody noticed me. |
I turned and drew an alternative view. |
Redrawn at home with fine liners and coloured pencils |
Rapid sketch before work of the view from my front room. |
Drawn in the shopping centre from the warmth of my car |
Turned to draw the corner between the shops. This view is more interesting |
and the pub. |
My other proposed project is to look at the old paper mill down the other side of town which is being made into a museum The Apsley Paper Trail
Using thick lines to define the structures I want to draw attention to is a technique I have borrowed from Lucinda Rogers and Veronica Lawlor
Some disused mill machinery and canada geese on the canal |
These drawings were done on paper made at the mill. In the spirit of Assignment 2 it seems fitting.
The Fourdriner Machine (not currently in use) |
A close up looking through the drums and rollers to the cogs behind. This might be the most interesting of the drawings. |
The paper pulper |
A sheet paper cutter in action (left) and a section of the machine which is currently used to make the paper I used. |
Pathe news clip about the New Town
BFI film about the New Town
In black and white with commentary
Or in colour without
I was lucky to be able to attend the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Manchester and to do some workshops which challenged the way I normally work. The first considered rules of composition and the application of colour before drawing into it with a water-soluble pencil. We went to the wonderful Royal Exchange Theatre with Isabel Carmona and Len Grant.
Next using different ways to represent space.
A drawing in the round looking at the whole of Barton Arcade which is a beautiful but rather complicated shopping arcade with a Catalan illustrator called Swasky
And the same arcade, this time I sat in one place but turned on the spot to get different views then linked them together.
Also a workshop with Veronica Lawlor who is one of my illustration heroes looking at thumbnails to simplify complicated structures and explore composition
in the Castlefields area which has trains, canals and complicated bridges
I stayed in the Holiday Inn with a view of the Palace Hotel. This was drawn in pencil after dark with colour and ink added over the top. I tried to keep it loose and expressive but I'm not keen on the colour of the sky.
I took this information and some of the exercises in Part 3 and decided to draw the flats near my house in charcoal attached to a long stick to make my lines less controlled. Then I added a loose wash of gouache with a 2inch paintbrush which I held at the very end to keep the application loose. I used a red brown felt tip as a contrasting colour and defined the buildings using a continuous line then defined shadows and highlights with coloured pencil. Finally I added collaged green paper for the foliage.
Tutor feedback
My tutor suggested that I look at the work of Garry Barker who uses drawings made while walking his local area to provide inspiration for bigger works. I like the way he plays with perspective, I am becoming interested in the variety of ways we depict what we can see, particularly when we move away from the tyranny of linear and arial perspective. He has some interesting ways of generating and combining ideas using cards placed randomly on the paper, smaller, on the spot drawings and drawings of dreams. However I do find his work quite dark and a little disturbing even though the subject matter is benign. It is the way he combines normal objects, the repetition of motifs and the style of drawing, which is quite naive at times, that makes the work dark for me.
She also suggested that I further research psychogeography I have read Merlin Coverley's book Psychogeography from the Pocket Essentials series but found it a bit difficult to follow as it bases it's arguments on books that I have never read. The lovely Tate has an area on it's website which is much more informative. Essentially the Tate defines psychogeography as asking how different places make us feel and behave. You can consider the history of the place and how that may project forward to influence the present. Some of that is due to the remnants of the past in the form of buildings and topography some is a bit mystic, does the fact that Centrepoint was built on an old leper colony influence the later congregation of drunks and junkies in the area?
To make it easier to follow I have started a dedicated blog for my parallel project . Please go to http://calhoy2.blogspot.co.uk
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