Week 05: Still Life

Chalks,  20 minutes

 Done in charcoal,  however I tried to use it differently than I usually do by not smudging it and leaving the highlights completely blank instead of removing the charcoal with white pencil or a putty rubber like you can see in the landscape drawing. This gives the drawing quite an impressionistic look as some areas are not completley accurate, such as the ribs, but  I have tried to imply the look of more of them.
The curved line of the card on the right sweeps across the page onto the table, drawing your eye across the page. The problem with this is that they look as if they are connected and the edges are kissing which does not look pleasing to the eye. A horizon line and background could have been added to ground the drawing.
Another important aspect of the composition is the reflective card. I think I have implied this with the use of shadows and highlights.

Chalks on coloured paper, 8 minutes

Here you can see evidence of foreshortening on the ribs and skull which gives the picture depth. I have tried to draw in the highlights and lighter areas of the composition first with white chalk instead of drawing it all out in line first. This is why the image is done on coloured paper as this enables you to see the highlights. This worked well for this particular composition as there were more light than shadow. It also give a quick, sketchy impressionistic style. I added some shadows with a black chalk looks very bold against the bright white which adds to the style.

Chalk on coloured paper, 30 minutes

I think the fact that the card is reflective is more evident in this image as you can see reflected images in it such as the skull and the card. I worked in the same way as the above drawing however I also used brown chalk to add some midtones. Again a horizon line and addition of the table could be added to ground the image as it currently looks like its floating.

Week 04: Charcoal Landscape

 Charcoal and chalk, 40 minutes

In this landscape drawing, impressionistic techniques have been used in an attempt to portray the whole landscape without drawing every detail. This has been especially used on the tree area in the background where I have used simple lines and strokes to suggest complete trees. The selection of media was important to help create these techniques as charcoal has much less control than pencil and therefore the drawing becomes less precise and detail is lost.
Vertical lines to help ground the buildings and break up the sweeping horizontal lines of the land and trees. The use of the white chalk helps highlight lighter areas and breaks up an otherwise very dark drawing and show in which direction the light is coming from.
There are two points of interest in this piece which are the church spire in the left hand side and the large white building on the bottom right. The fact that these are opposite colours creates contrast and balances the drawing. 

Week 03: Landscape (Atrium)

Oil pastels - 40 minutes

Obviously one of the major downfalls of this image is that it has no ground or background detail which would have really helps show the viewer the size of building but because this has not been done, you do not have much of an idea how large it is. Another element that would have been interesting to add is what was behind the glass, e.g. Tables and people as this would have suggested that that the material on the windows was actually glass instead of it looking as if it is made of the same material of the roof.
The angles on the drawing appear to have been considered well as the angles of the roof match those of the supports, however you can see the far end support block's angle does not align with the rest. The angles also show perspective and proportion as the right side has larger support beams which reduce in size slightly as you move to the left and the angles of the horizontal beams follow this well.
The pastels have been used quite heavily in this image in order to cover most of the coloured paper. Although the green is generally used to create mid-tones allowing you to concentrate mainly on highlights and shadows, for this mid-tones have been created mostly with the pastels which works quite well as it accurately reflects tones and colours of the actual building.

Week 02: Architecture

 Graphite - 10 minutes  (Bradford Cathedral Int.)

Charcoal & white chalk, 5 minutes (Bradford Cathedral Int.)

 Charcoal & white chalk, 30 minutes (Church in Meanwood) 

The use of clear two point perspective here helps show the depth of the building however, the fact that some lines are not straight such as the spire in the forefront of the image take away from the sturdy look of the building as it now looks wobbly and bending due to the slight curvature. The same can be applied to the roof and protruding walls which have not been observed very well as they are all different sizes. 

There is some attempt to show finesse with the material through combining it with the white chalk though it has not worked extremely well and perhaps a harder material may have been more suitable to drawing detail in which this drawing lacks. The small amounts of foliage near the doors are more successful elements of the image as they reflect their material better than that of the building. 

Also, because this is quite an uninteresting image, the rule of thirds could have been applied with more care to produce some different and more interesting 'areas of interest' and a good focal point (as they isn't a particular one in this image) as well as using the white chalk to its fullest extent to pick out highlights and make them more intense.

The upper two drawings are quick sketches observing small details which ideally should have been included in the more detailed sketch. Although they are just quick sketches they both show some perspective  but they do not have many compositional elements.