For this assignment I was asked to create two large a1 figure study drawings one using line and one using tone and a portrait combining both line and tone. All with supporting studies and experiments. 

I started with my A1 figure study using line. I used my husband for this study and seated him upright on a stool in our kitchen. My aim for this drawing was to pay particular attention to the accuracy of the proportions of my husband in relation to each other. 

I started by taking photographs of my husband in slightly different positions and from lots of different angles. I also experimented with where the light source was coming from in order to make the compositions more exciting. 

My next step was to create some exploratory sketches before starting on my large drawing. I tried to be as expressive and experimental as I could be, I wanted to experiment with different poses and positions as well as experimenting with different media’s and materials. 

For my first exploratory study I positioned my husband facing forwards with his arms bent and resting on his legs and his legs bent with his feet resting on the stool.

I worked on an old piece of cardboard approximately a4 size and I used a biro and I worked quickly. I felt this drawing could be more exciting so I experimented with adding charcoal to highlight darker areas and then tip ex pen to highlight lighter areas. In the end I felt the tip ex pen was too bright and maybe a white chalk would have been more effective. I also feel the charcoal may have taken away from the use of line in the drawing. 

For my next drawing I worked on beige sugar paper and drew with charcoal. This time I positioned Rob sideways in a more animated way with his arms raised and he was singing loudly. After working quickly with charcoal I wanted to experiment further so continued with coloured chalk and then added biro in order to refine some details. I was pleased that my drawing managed to show high energy but then I added charcoal to the background which didn’t work at all, if anything my dark charcoal background took the energy away from from the figure. 

For my next drawing I used Indian ink on white cartridge paper. I positioned Rob in a sideways position facing forwards and I worked with a sharpened stick. This was a quick drawing so some of my proportions are wrong, namely the stool is too small as is his left hand. However I was pleased with the expressive nature of the lines in this drawing. 

For my next drawing I wanted to just concentrate on accuracy and getting the proportions right so I worked with a pencil on cartridge paper. Rob was speaking in a remote meting at the time, so I sat in a chair opposite him and asked him to try to stay still. The drawing was quick and I drew the proportions of the stool wrong but I feel like I captured Robs proportions accurately.

For my next drawings I wanted to be more exciting and try to capture more energy in my drawings. I took inspiration from both Richard Hambledean and Don Gale. Both artists show movement and energy in their figures through expressive brushstrokes so this is something I wanted to experiment with. 

I used tipex pen on black paper. My proportions are fairly accurate however the head is wrong. I am pleased with my expressive moving lines, they do show energy however as the position of rob is very still these moving marks don’t work, the drawing feels very contradictory. 

For my next drawing I worked from a photograph I took earlier on in the project, this pose shows more movement so I wanted to experiment with moving expressive lines. Below is my drawing. I used loose quick lines with Indian ink and a sharpened stick. This was much more effective, however my criteria for this drawing was a seated figure so showing movement isn’t as high a priority.

For my next drawing I experimented with colour. I worked on blue sugar paper and used acrylic paint applied with a palette knife. Using a palette knife meant my use of line was more pronounced. I enjoyed creating this drawing, however for a line drawing capturing detail with a palette knife was difficult on such a small scale and less effective. I felt that using paint would be more effective in a tonal piece. 

For my last experimental drawing I worked on an old piece of wood and used Indian ink with a sharpened stick again. I felt that as the wood was quite porous, a black ink would be more effective than a lighter media such a pencil or charcoal. I was pleased with this drawing and really liked the texture that the wood gave. One of the hands was wrong though, this is something I really need to pay attention to in my final piece as it is the hands that I often find difficult.

For my final piece I was asked to work a1 size. This I found very daunting as I have never worked on such a large scale before. Even though the directions were to create a final piece that’s as exciting as our developmental experiments, my own personal target was to just try to create accurate proportions on such a large scale.

For this drawing I worked on white a1 paper I positioned rob on a stool facing towards me but with his body facing the side. His arm was positioned leant on our kitchen worktop and one leg was crossed over another. 

As I knew this drawing was going to take a while I worked from a photograph. I was also aware that working from a flat image to a flat image was going to be more straightforward than working from life. 

 I started lightly with a pencil trying to lightly mark where each body part started and ended. This took me a long time, working and re working how big everything was in comparison to everything else. Once I had a basic idea of where everything went I used a black pen to continue with the drawing. I tried to experiment with the thickness and length of the lines whilst paying attention to the small details of Rob, paying particular attention to the hands. Below are some of the stages I went through.

When I was happy that I had finished my drawing, whilst I was pleased with the accuracy of Robs proportions I felt that my drawing looked less exciting than some of my experiments. I therefore decided to experiment with the background. I added some charcoal and chalk to the background to try to create a sense of atmosphere. However instead of creating atmosphere I felt my drawing looked washed out and less successful than it was before I added the background.

To try to improve the drawing again I experimented with using a rubber to draw in lighter tones. this seemed to work, it made my drawing seem lighter and brighter and it added definition.

 

My next figure drawing was to be a reclining figure completed in tone. I decided to focus this time on my seven year old son Leo. This time I worked exclusively from photographs as my son would not be able to sit still for long enough. 

Leo lay on the sofa and I again took photographs of him in different positions and from different angles with different light sources.

For my first drawing I worked with a pencil on white cartridge paper. I was pleased with this drawing as I felt Leos proportions were in the right places and my light and dark areas were in the right areas too. However I felt the drawing was not especially exciting and I wanted to experiment with other techniques and media’s. 

For my next drawing I wanted to experiment with foreshortening as this is a part of the project I really enjoyed. For this drawing Leos bottom and feet were closest to the camera, therefore it made them look bigger proportionally than areas of his body furthest away from the camera such as his head. I drew with charcoal this time. I was pleased with my proportions and accuracy on this drawing, however on reflection my use of tone looked more like line than tone. The drawing also looks quite outlined which I think an effective tonal drawing probably shouldn’t. 

I wanted to experiment with drawing on different surfaces as I was pleased with the effectiveness of drawing on a piece of wood for the first part of this assignment. My first experiment was on the inside of an envelope. I liked the blue pattern on the envelope and thought this might add depth to the drawing. I used a biro as I felt this would stand out against the background. Overall I don’t think this background was particularly effective or especially different from a plain white background. I was again happy with my proportions of the figure but I don’t think I effectively tackled tone. My tonal marks in Leo’s arm are particularly ineffective and messy. 

For my next drawing I wanted to experiment with working in colour so I drew inspiration from Graham Little and his use of coloured pencils and his unique and intricate detail and colour blending. 

I haven’t really worked with colouring pencils before so I found this difficult. I felt that my use of colour appeared too bright and varied and didn’t look realistic at all. I didn’t manage to achieve the same technique as Graham Little. However this is a media I would like to experiment with further as I did enjoy the experimental process. 

For my next drawing I wanted to take inspiration from Egon Shieles work. His self portraits show bony and angular figures who appear deeply disturbed, they have an unfinished feel about them and show a mixture of both line and tone. 

Whilst I didn’t want to be portraying my 7 year old son in a disturbing way, I did want to experiment with his style of both line and colour and try to show that expressive slightly unfinished style. Rather than working on white paper I decided that a working on top of a colourful magazine page could be an exciting experiment. 

I applied a light layer of acrylic paint, just enough to show the colour but little enough to let the magazine page show through. I then added line using my biro.

I was really pleased with this experiment, however I did feel that this style of working may be better suited towards my final portrait drawing where I have been instructed to use both line and tone, rather than for this piece which is supposed to be looking at tone. 

For my next experiment I worked on newspaper, I used Indian ink and a sharpened stick and because this drawing is focussing on tone I added water as ink can create a very line based drawing. Whilst I enjoyed this drawing experiment and was fairly pleased with the results I didn’t This was the most effective way for me to be showing off my tonal skills or ability and I feel that ink really is a better media for line. 

For my final experiment I wanted to use chalk colours. I felt this may be a more effective media to use to show tone. I worked on cardboard, but overall I wasn’t especially pleased with my result. I found chalk and cardboard to not work well together as the surface of the cardboard was bumpy which made the application of the large chalks I was using difficult to apply in the exact places I wanted to apply it. My drawing looks quite flat and clearly needs more layers of colour and tone, but I gave up after a while as I just didn’t feel like it was working for me. 

Looking back at my experimentation I decided that I would be best off using charcoal and adding chalk to highlight different tonal areas. I would have liked to keep it simple and just use pencil but I felt that using pencil on such a big scale may not be as effective. I worked on a1 white paper (solely for the reason that I had no access to other material this size.)

Again the part of this drawing that took the longest for me was working out where every body part in proportion to each other was going to go. I was again working from a photograph which did make it slightly easier. 

Once I had the basics of  the figure drawn out with a light pencil line I started filling in my drawing with my charcoal sticks. I then added some different tones with some white brown and yellow chalks. I found working on such a large scale difficult as there was very little room for mistakes, being such a large scale even slight errors in accuracy were very obvious. I especially found making the eyes the same size difficult as I kept making the pupils different sizes to each other. I did find the chalk quite accommodating to this though as it was easy to wipe off when mistakes were made.

I did find adding just the two colours brown and yellow difficult, adding just the slightest tones of colour made me want to add more colour especially the correct colours. I decided not to add the correct colours as the main bulk of the drawing was black charcoal so I didn’t think it would work. 

Overall I am pleased with my drawing, not because I think it is more effective than my smaller experimental drawings but because I managed a tonal drawing on such a large scale. There are certainly areas for improvement on this drawing though. I am pleased with Leos face and hair, and I feel like my accuracy and proportions are correct, however some of my tonal work needs to be developed and improved. Leos right foot looks quite flat and I think I spent so much time trying to draw the Pokémon figures on his pyjama bottoms that I almost forgot about trying to make them look 3dimensional and life like. I tried to show shadow on his stomach but I think this looks rather clumsy and it is not especially obvious that it is shadow that I am trying to show. I also wonder if adding more of a scene in the background would give the drawing a better sense of place? 

For my final drawing I was asked to complete a portrait, this time any size and this portrait was to use a combination of both line and tone. 

I decided to draw my middle son Teddy who is 4. I started by taking a selection of  photographs of his face. I experimented with different facial expressions and different angles. 

For my first experimental piece, I used acrylic paint with the intention of painting teddy in a fairly realist way drawing inspiration from sir Stanley Spencer, Rembrandt or Freud. 

Obviously my painting of Teddy can’t even begin to compare or to compete with any of these great masters but I enjoyed looking at their brushstrokes and colour palettes when I was working. I am pleased with my painting especially as it didn’t take me too long, but because the directions for this portrait was to combine both line and tone, this style wasn’t going to work. 

For my next experiment I worked with Indian Ink, hoping to draw inspiration from Rembrandt’s etchings. 

When drawing Teddy, I payed close attention to the exciting marks Rembrandt made in his own self portraits such as cross hatching and expressive short quick lines.

Overall even though I was pleased with my use of line and mark making, my drawing didn’t really show effective use of tone. 

For my next drawing I wanted to experiment with facial expression so I asked Teddy to pull some funny faces. in the drawing below I used charcoal. I love Teddy’s expression but this drawing doesn’t really show a mixture of line and tone.

I decided I wanted to go back and look at Egon Shiele’s way of working, with his unfinished looking work that incorporates both line and tone. 

I started by painting teddy’s face with a thin layer of acrylic paint then I added line with a black fine liner pen. 

I was really pleased with this drawing of Teddy. I am pleased with the way I have drawn Teddy’s features especially his open mouth and scrunched up nose. I also think the black fineliner pen works well as a really good contrast to the acrylic paint. I am not pleased however with the way I have drawn Teddys hair. I haven’t used any tone and the result of this is it looks really flat. 

I decided for my final piece I would try to develop further my Egon Shieles inspired drawing style. 

I worked a2 on white cartridge paper and focused on Teddys face looking straight on. I again started very lightly with a pencil blocking out Teddys features and making sure everything was in proportion to everything else. I then began to paint. I again used acrylic paint and tried to capture all of the tones of his face.  I tried to only paint up to a point. I wanted my work to have the same unfinished  look as Egon Shieles work. I wanted also to try to finish my work off with a pen like I did on my previous piece. Below are the different stages of my painting.

I then added line with my black finepoint pen. 

I wasn’t especially pleased with my final piece. I preferred my smaller a4 experimental piece and was cross with myself for not choosing a more exciting facial expression. I think I added too much black line and transformed my four year old into a much older person, I also feel like I didn’t master the hair. 

My self assessment on the assessment criteria points. 

• demonstration of technical and visual skills- materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills.

I am pleased with my development throughout this course and I do feel like my technical, visual and observational skills have improved throughout this project. I have really enjoyed drawing portraits and the human form and I do feel like my portraits actually look like the people I am drawing. Even though my final drawings don’t display a huge range of materials, fineliner, charcoal and chalk and acrylic paint,  I feel like my preliminary drawings that lead up to these displayed a lot more. Including working on different surfaces. 

Compositionally I have taken into consideration the viewpoint and angle I am drawing from as well as considering negative spaces. I have thought about light source and hopefully my drawings show 

atmosphere and narrative.

 I have tried to experiment with different techniques, including mark making and line with different materials such as pencil, charcoal, fineliner pen and Indian ink used with a sharpened stick. I have also tried to experiment with different tonal techniques, including using colour with chalk, colouring pencils and paint and working in monotone with chalk, charcoal and pencil. 

• quality of outcome- content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts, communication of ideas.

I have tried to present my work in a coherent manner showing my conceptualisation of thoughts and my communication of ideas. For each part of the assignment I started with my experimental preliminary work which included a series of quick drawings that experimented with pose, angle, drawing style and materials used. These preliminary drawings gradually led to and informed the development of my final pieces. 

• Demonstration of creativity- imagination, experimentation, invention, development of a personal voice.

I have enjoyed being creative and using my imagination to experiment throughout this assignment and project 4. I became really engrossed in my preliminary studies and felt free to experiment without the fear of making mistakes as they were just my preliminary studies. I do think though that this experimentation can always be taken further? I could use a wider range of both materials and subject matter in order to develop my own personal voice further. I do think though that my final pieces in comparison to my experimental preparatory work, were not as exciting or as inventive so this is something I know I need to work on in the future. However I did feel at the time that the main challenge for me was to be able to work on such a large scale. I think now I feel I have accomplished this I will be more confident in the future to not only work on a large scale but to be more experimental and exciting on that large scale. 

• Context reflection- research, critical thinking.

Whilst I hope I have explained my thought process in as much detail as I could, It is sometimes difficult for me to express myself in a word format. 

I have tried to put my work into context by referring to artists who have inspired me both throughout the whole of part 4 and for this assignment. 

Throughout this project I have thoroughly enjoyed researching and learning how other artists both contemporary and historical have portrayed the human form. I have found it fascinating to learn about the reasons why artists have portrayed the figure as much as I have been interested in how they do it.