Charcoal Drawings

Charcoal Drawings




This is the first task we were given when starting college. Drawing natural forms from life as well as our own drawings using charcoal and chalk. I started with the spindly 'flower bomb' drawing referenced by a physical flower on the table. I have always struggled drawing from life as I can never quite get the dimensions looking right so I thought choosing a flower with lots of straight lines was my best bet. 


Although I'm not completely happy with this one, I like how I layered the white chalk over the charcoal as it helped add definition so the very 2D looking plant., next time I'd like to make the seed pods look more complete and 3D, and add more 'leaves' of pods to make it look busier and more eye-catching.

I then tried adding a generic branch of leaves in the corner.


I really liked these as they were quick and easy to produce, but by adding more leaves I could make it look more busy and realistic. I did however like the shading created by blending the charcoal and chalk together as well as overlapping the leaves.

Next was the potted plant.

At this point I was interested in creating a piece that could work as a 'stand alone' so I thought I plotted plant could work. I'm not sure of the name of this plant, but I had found a random picture online that I found as a reference. I really like this one as I think I managed to show the bends and folds of the leaves and stem  quite well. Although I couldn't quite make the pot look perfect (due to the charcoal smudging and not being good at proportions), I think it blends in quite well with the plant and the surrounding plants.

I then tried to create a lily.


I have never tried to draw a lily before and I think this is evident in the piece. I struggled a lot trying to show where the leaves ended, or where the shadows darkened. I think with another media like pencils I make be able to differentiate a lot better with the two but with charcoal I struggled.
At this point I had a lot of empty space on the paper so I decided to add a few smaller 'filler' pieces just to fill out the blank spaces. 


Heidi Shedlock


Shedlock is a South African, Durban based artist who grew up in a creative family. She taught for a few years before giving up to produce her own work full time. She made a project consisting of 568 small paintings which she produced one a day for 568 consecutive days.


I love this piece, specifically because of how much detail she has managed to show so delicately. 
She has drawn three roses to be the focal point, with lots of smaller, less defined flowers to create a huge bouquet, however she has still kept the clean crisp lines and edges which prevent it from smudging together.





















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Early Stages

Image
 Early Stages Scales The first challenge I came across was to find an effective method to put the scales on the snakes. It had to be quick, but also consistent each time to emulate the scales on real life snakes. I ended up 3D printing a scale 'printing' tile, which would transfer the texture of the scales onto the clay. Although this was meant to just be a practice piece which I would revise and change the size and depth if needed, it turned out great so I have used this for all my snakes. We rounded the top surface (the top and bottom edges are more shallow with a peak in the centre) so I could roll the tile over the snake and reduce any harsh, inorganic, lines, as well as to reduce the chance of the tile getting stuck to the clay. Heads For the first snake, I attempted to follow a tutorial by ' MP Gautheron ', but I wasn't very happy with the final result. In my opinion the head looked more like a Crested or Leopard Gecko than any snake I was trying to make. The
Read more

Online Profiles

Image
 Online Profiles Why Do Artists Need An Online Profile? A website, blog or social media can be a great way to let the general public, and potential buyers, know who you are and what you do, provided it's done correctly. You can showcase your portfolio, and even sell your own work without the need for a middleman. It can also be a great way to enhance the perception of professionalism without having to work your way through galleries and word of mouth. Social media is a great tool to use as an artist, people can look at your art and become interested by accident, therefore widening your potential buyers pool very quickly. Due to this however, it's important to constantly update your page (wether it be on social media or a website) because as there is so much information, and other artists, out there, so you need to hook your audience in, and most importantly, keep them engaged.  My Online Profile During my Foundation Fine Art Degree I have already created an online profile, this
Read more

Final Project

Image
 Final Project For the finished arrangement, I decided on 4 different display options. I had bought an old shoe shiner's box from a charity shop in Eastwood, which I filled with soil. The shape of the box and the top-hinged lid created a tunnel effect. This created the illusion that the heads carried on for further than the eye could see, which I think worked perfectly.  The other two methods of display were two old suitcases that were conveniently already at the studio. One I filled with scrap pieces of white and cream fabrics. That way, the heads would blend in to the fabric slightly, creating the illusion that there is more heads in there that the audience can see at first glance. Instead of being obvious, you would have to look directly at them, and find each head within the fabric. The other suitcase I filled with a single roll of hessian. This would create the opposite effect than the other suitcase, where each head would stand out against the fabric. It's more of a state
Read more