Author: Claire Pascoe

The Task

Finding a Subject 

Review Relevant part for the course – most enjoyable and successful studies

Evaluate drawings – technical skills and creativity – what need to alter adapt and build on in the future – Past Present Future.

Subject – focus of my drawing

Format – landscape, Portrait or other

Support – Paper, board, found material

Medium – single, combined, mixed, experimental

Mood – Story, visual impression

Abstract or realist – combination of both?

Light – Natural or artificial ?

Size – negotiate with your tutor

Large bold gesture or does the subject suggest more delicate subtle handling?

Are you going to explore line and tonal values with a limited palette?

Experiment with media in sketch book.

Plenty of time in the right light, think about light.

Right equipment

Working with human form, figure study or head and shoulders, self portrait explore, expressive aspects of figures or portrait drawing or work more objectively on an analytical study.  Background or props.

How colour might convey mood and atmosphere, colour washes to express tonal values experiment with effects before starting.

Note down the rationale for any decisions and put it in the artist’s statement.

Keep looking at my subject and finding fresh ways to interpret it, have an enquiring approach and search for interpretations of your subject that is right for me.  

Look for artists for inspiration as I go.

The Written Element – your artists statement

Short written statement 500 words, 

NDiscuss your chosen option – why chose it, which artists, materials, methods, themes etc interested me and why.  

This is my proposal or plan, setting out the task that I will attempt and how I will do this.

Think about what I want to test through drawing and this will become the title of my project.

Title – how artists convey how it feels to be depressed to a viewer 

Reflect on what you’ve done before and what I’m doing now – make notes in my learning log. Photograph work in progress and my experimental test pieces as supporting material for final statement.  Keep everything together in my learning log, critically assess my work and complete a piece of writing that will inform the reader about my progress towards this personal project. Think clearly and creatively about my drawing and inform and build my practice through looking at what others do, why they do it and how you might learn from their example.  Accurately reflect my journey through my chosen personal project.

Opportunity to test an interesting idea through a combination of drawing and writing.  Practice-led research.  

Research for part 5

How does art make us feel?

Art can make us feel many things depending on what the artist intended and also how the message is conveyed. The message may be lost or confused in the process or too complex or only part of the message picked up by the viewer.  

Art moves us, it communicates ideas it can make us stop and stare or make us think, wonder or feel.  It can please us, worry us, frighten, calm us, educate us, feel empathy and many other emotions. This is because it can trigger an emotional response in us, and as we are all different, with different experiences of life these emotional responses will be different too.  We can create an emotional connection with a piece of art because it speaks to us individually but also to others. Communicating emotions through subject, composition, lighting, contrast, tone, depth, colour, line and even brush stroke. A beautiful piece of art can bring emotions to the surface for its beauty alone.  

This process starts with artists communicating with the viewer, the artist may feel passionately about something and want to pass that passion on to others.  The artist may be feeling a particular emotion themselves and this emotion may come out in their work. For example, Jackson Pollock (1912 – 1956) he was depressed himself and this made him work in a certain way which can connect with the viewer, making his abstract work meaningful.  Sometimes these emotional responses are unintentional but artists usually feel passionately about what they do and have a story to tell.

Looking back in history we may not understand the meanings in their work now but at the time the meanings may have been strong and clear.  For example in Egyptian art we may not understand the full significance of some artefacts but they may have been deeply meaningful at the time.  It was during the Renaissance (1400’s) that art became more as we know it today and provokes heightened emotions in us, partly due to the realism in the images. 

The way that an artist can convey some of these ideas to the viewer is very varied.  By using light for instance the artist can make a scene dark, depressing and even frightening or make the scene light, warm and cheering.  By illuminating certain areas with light it can draw the viewer’s attention to an area of the work and equally less so to an area that is dark. 

The tonal values can make a light or warm composition which gives a feeling of happiness and comfort.  When an artist uses complementary colours, these are from other sides of the colour wheel they can have an impact on the composition and draw attention. The painter JMW Turner (1775 – 1851), used white to add drama and strong clear brush strokes to give his paintings depth, drawing the viewer into the composition and creating energy.  Line can communicate different ideas such as circles which can be calming but if the circles are distorted they can convey energy or movement. If an artist uses more jagged lines it can create painful images such as contemporary artist Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) ‘weeping woman’ below.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/picasso-weeping-woman-t05010 (accessed 09/01/2020)

Artist’s work mostly because they are moved by something or they want to make a statement about something that they feel passionately about, maybe something that they feel emotional about too. The painting above was painted during the Spanish civil war and was a reaction to the sadness that Picasso saw around him.  

There are other ways that an artist can portray emotion, using nostalgia can provoke this creating sentimental or wistful feelings that are linked with our personal experiences.  Narratives that everyone can relate to, childhood experiences and experiences of growing up and becoming old, the stillness of waiting for something to happen.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sargent-carnation-lily-lily-rose-n01615 (accessed 09/01/2020)

When I first saw the above painting John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) ‘Carnation Lily Lily Rose’ in Tate Britain, I was drawn to it. The childhood innocence clearly plays on the viewers sense of nostalgia, as does the sheer beauty depicted in the scene. 

Curiosity can also play on our emotions so artists can use this as a tool to evoke emotions, making the viewer want to ask questions about what is going on, what is the story that happened here. Finding the most interesting composition can evoke emotions better, looking at different angles to make a composition work better.  Adding unexpected items into the composition can add surprise into the work, making it trigger other thoughts and emotions. Using emotions as the artist yourself thinking empathetically, how you felt when you had this emotion helps in subtle details that you may not have thought about before. The way you use your hands for instance when you are happy or sad, small parts of the facial expression that make work feel more genuine.  

Starting point

These are some of the things that I will think about whilst working on the composition for the piece. My daughter is suffering from severe depression at the moment and having her around, has made me think about how I can work on what it feels like to be depressed.  I have suffered from anxiety and depression in my life and my idea is to try and convey what these feelings look like. To me anxiety has felt like you have lost something very important, that sudden flush when you realise what you have lost your purse only the feeling does not stop it just goes on and on.  

Emotion has been quite a driving force through Drawing 1 and I can really see this now in many of the pieces that I have done, here are a couple of examples here.

In Drawing 1 Part 1, I looked at how to draw what I was feeling and this piece of work came to mind on anxiety. I had just moved to London from Cornwall and I drew what I was feeling at the time. 

Own Photograph Own drawing (accessed 09/01/2020)

In Drawing 1 Assignment 1 

I was feeling very sad as my son had just gone to Canada for two years and drawing his old trainers left at the kitchen door was emotional for me. I like the way that they had moulded to his feet as if part of his feet were still with me.

Here I have been thinking about some words that evoke depression

Depression – Withdrawn, Blue, staying inside, sad, removed, bed, dark, hiding, struggle, Alone, Torment, Empty, Hopeless, Numb, Relentless, Beyond blue, insecure, antisocial.

Pablo Picasso 

This artist Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) painting ‘The Blue Room’ has a really depressed feeling.  It looks like having a wash is a real effort and this is exactly how it feels everything is heavy and dark. The position that the woman’s body is in with the arms hanging down and the hump of the back make the figure seem sad and depressed. 

https://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/browse-the-collection?id=1554&page=1 (accessed 09/01/2020)

Suggested artists by my Tutor

Glen Brown (b 1966)

Glen Brown is a contemporary British artist, he uses other artists images by starting with a reproduction from another artist’s work and transforming the images by changing the colour, positions and orientation, height and width relationship mood and or size.  He alters the images to his specific needs, he distorts, pulls, and even turns images upside down using programmes like photoshop. Once the composition is found, he then paints giving the work a turbulent painterly application. He says he likes his paintings to have ‘one foot in the grave’, with morbid creepy atmospheres, unnatural colours are used too to emphasize this dreamlike world.

The image below is based on a work by Pierre Subleyras (1699 – 1749) the bush strokes give the image a sort of movement, Glen Brown describes the strokes as ‘scar like’ it definitely has a morose feel about it and is uncomfortable for the viewer.

https://glenn-brown.co.uk/artworks/590/ (accessed 20/01/2020)

Yan Pei Ming (b 1960)

This contemporary Chinese painter paints expressionistic, monumental works of art, portraits of famous figures such as Micheal Jackson, Mao Zedong and the pope, as well as animals and landscapes and even skulls on dollar bills.  He uses really long brushes that are wide like decorating brushes. I found a video that shows him working, dabbing and moving thick paint around with these large brushes. The paintings that are of tanks and warplanes seem to come out of the canvas and have a three dimensional quality to them even though they are black and white.  They look very dramatic particularly because of the massive size of the canvas, they must be very inspiring to look at in real life. I saw some watercolour paintings of skulls that were interesting using drips and marks made by the water. There is an element of darkness and tragedy to his work and the pictorial language that he uses is easy to understand.

https://slash-paris.com/en/evenements/yan-pei-ming-help (accessed 20/01/2020)

Käthe Kollwitz (1867 – 1945)

Kathe Kollwitz lived during some very difficult times, the struggle of life is depicted by her.  She uses Painting, Printmaking which includes etching, lithography, woodcuts and sculpture, most of her work is either black and white or dark colours.  The difficulties of people around her, such as the Weavers, shows the struggles and hardships of the working people around her. Poverty, war and hunger linger in her work which was the surroundings of her life. Living in Berlin at this time would have meant living through World War 1 and the difficulties for Germans after this, and the lead up to the Second War and Finally the Second World War itself. Very desperate times, she lost her son Peter in the First World War and the impact of this tragic event pervades her work. She describes searching for her son in her work and this need to convey these emotions are closely tied to her work.  The image below ‘The Widow 1’ comes from a group of seven woodcuts made between 1921 – 22 called ‘War Portfolio’. The white of the paper is the line and the highlight, the contrast between the white and black is very striking. The intense mourning and the unrelieved blackness makes her work closely associated with expressionism.  

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kathe-kollwitz-26768 (accessed 10/02/2020)

Research

Paul Klee (1879 – 1940)

In my search to become more creative in my drawing, I came across Paul Klee. As well as being a great artist, he was a prolific teacher and worked at the Bauhaus between 1921 and 1931.  He suffered from depression during the war and his work seems to talk to the subconscious and display characteristics of his mental state.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-how-to-be-an-artist-according-to-paul-klee

This article was very interesting, his ideas of moving freely without a goal and looking at nature and how things work in nature, such as the way things grow to help his work was inspiring.  Visually weighing up colours against one another and whether combinations of colours are more harmonious or dissonant depending on the pairing.

He suggests studying the greats, breaking down artworks into elementary components, line, form and colour to determine what makes the image successful or problematic. 

Arthur Rackman – The Tempest

These drawings are very haunting and the characters very expressive

Anxiety – Agitated, churning, tight, vulnerable, exposed, pessimistic, nervous, edgy, paranoid, irritable, emotional, overwhelmed,

Christos Tsimaris

I really like the way this contemporary artist works with backgrounds that are cloudy and but full of movement.

Country and townhouse – (Feb 2020 edition) accessed (20/01/2020)

Starting Work

From the research I have done I started by thinking about the more cliche images that come to mind when thinking about depression and exploring this.  The backgrounds are dark and atmospheric, and the poses curled up, stormy.

I thought about the Kathe Kollwitz image’s that I looked at, and how she used the dark colours to portray the darkness that the subjects were feeling.  The positions that people put themselves in, the way they hold themselves is different when they are suffering from emotional trauma. I noticed this in her work too and this is something I want to think about and explore in my work on this assignment.  

Here I started thinking about the ways that we want to hold our bodies when we are feeling unwell.  This is what I think of when thinking about depression and this is probably what is the most common thought for most people.  This is from my A3 sketch book and is three quick sketches of my daughter curled up.

Own image own photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

Here I was copying Kath Kollwitz and Max Klinger (1857 -1920),  the despair in their work is something that I am trying to analyse.  What elements I can use to portray some of these emotions in my own work.

Own image own photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

This is from my A4 sketch book and is black and white paint using a Japanese pen.

Own image own photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

The way that when you have depression you want to hold yourself and block out the world around you and shut your eyes.  This image was done using black ink and Japanese pen and is in A4 from my sketch book.

Own image own photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

In the image below I used wax crayon on the white paper and then painted over the wax crayon with black paint.  It is A4 and from my sketch book.The marks were made by scratching off the black paint to get to the white paper underneath.  I was thinking about how to get the woodcut effect of Kath Kollwitz work. I think that these poses are a bit cliche and I need to think more about how I can make the poses different but still be able to convey the feeling that I want.

Own image own photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

This is from my A4 sketch book and is white and black ink on white paper.  I was thinking about how you want to blot out the world when you feel depressed.  This is something that I saw in Kath Kollwitz work too, so much can be conveyed just in showing a person’s hands.  I liked the work of Yan Pei Ming and his use of the grey scale and thick paint was something that I wanted to look at too in this work.

Own image own photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

This is from my A4 sketch pad and is white and black ink with gold leaf. The gold leaf is painted over with PVA glue, then the PVA is allowed to dry then the black paint is painted over and dried with the hair dryer which makes it crack in this interesting way.  This makes me think of the glimmers of light coming through when you think that everything is bleak and sad, you may not be able to see them but they are around you. This is something that I tell my daughter all the time that things will change and that light will come into her life again.

Own image own photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

Drawings of my daughter

It is my daughters facial expression that I was trying to capture here, the emptiness and sadness that she is feeling. I started with his pencil drawing on white paper, the expression is good but the pencil is a bit uninspiring.

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

I started looking at other mediums in my A3 Pastel paper pad using chalk, charcoal and pastel, taking away areas with my putty rubber. These are two small quick sketches with her.  

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

Here I tried a longer sketch, I do like the way that the white chalk captures the light but I want something more creative in terms of the mediums used.

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

I decided to try this again but I feel the same way that I need to be more creative.

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

Zen Drawing

From the book  – Gemma Guasch & Josep Asunción / 2009 / Creative Drawing / London / New Holland Publishers.

This style of drawing is deeply rooted in the tradition of Chinese painting and dates back to the Han dynasty in the second century BC.  Using India ink and brushes this technique requires splashing of the ink to create an area of colour with irregular edges. I have worked with black ink but the burnt black looks interesting too and a dark blue black is something that I want to try.  It is possible to create graduations of colour by allowing the ink to dry between the stages of application. The wet paper allows the ink to create blurry cloud like shapes, it relies on chance and accident to create interesting atmospheric effects. It is said that this style of drawing is about the inner states of the mind,  this is a link that I am interested in with my work on mental health. This work is dense and dark and that makes it interesting, by drying the wet ink and paper with a hair dryer it is possible to layer the ink to make it dense in areas and less dense in other areas. White areas can be created after using bleach to remove the ink and create areas of light within the dark. I could possibly use this as a background and then use a tenebrism technique to allow the light of the face to emerge from the darkness.                                                                         

Here I started working with ink on wet paper in my A4 sketch pad.  I really like the way that the marks feather out and smudge giving this rough torn edge.  

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

This method gave me the atmospheric feeling that I was looking for and would work well for me in the assignment.  

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

My daughter wears a coat with a hood that has fur around, it looks like the black cloud that she carries around with her.  The water on paper describes this well and I experimented with painting with water and then dropping the ink on with a paint brush. I used my A4 sketchbook, black ink, charcoal and white ink.  I like the way that the ink breaks up and looks like fur and my daughter is staring out from this black cloud.

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

Here I looked at other ways to describe the skin tone using an ink wash and then adding the darker and lighter skin tones in an A3 sketch book.  I like the spontaneous nature of this and maybe something that I could use.

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

Here I thought about how colour could be used to create expression.  In my A3 sketchbook using pastels, I drew myself but I feel that I will not use colour as this tends to look too cheerful.  I tried to have a worried expression but it still doesn’t have the right feeling in it.

Own image, own Photograph (accessed 10/02/2020)

Guy Denning (b 1965)

During my research for this part I came across the English contemporary painter Guy Denning (b 1965). His work is very interesting, I love the way that the paint drips and adds to the atmosphere.  He uses a variety of surfaces including cardboard boxes and newspaper that he uses to help describe the atmosphere. Then he uses multimedia to describe the features on a face by using lines, drips, splatters and spots.

https://guydenning.org/portfolio/painted/ (accessed 05/03/2020)

Using the work of Guy Denning as inspiration In the image below I started to think about using ink and how this fluid medium could convey a more dark and somber atmosphere to my work.  I like the way that the ink splatters and can be blown about to create small fine lines and using it as a negative space it looks like cracks. I want to look at how I can use the inks to describe different textures too in my work.  This image conveys some of the feeling of being lost that my daughter feels. However it may be a bit cliche, but I am finding difficult to think of original ways to convey this.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

In the image below I used the work of Guy Denning to make my own image using different marks, drips splatters and lines. I like the way that layering the marks you can reach a point where it is possible to give the image depth.  I used ink, black pen, charcoal and masking fluid to make this image.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

In the image below I used black paper with white ink and the mark making inspiration that I gained from looking at Guy Dennings work. It was very difficult to get the right shapes, and as you can’t really erase any mistakes this makes it even harder.  I used my Japanese brush with chalk and charcoal to make the image below.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

I definitely think that this was an interesting and inspiring artist and I would like to use some of these ideas in my assignment piece.

The Coat

My daughter wears a cost that we call the invisibility cloak, she wears it to hide when she goes out.  This coat has become a symbol in some ways of how she feels and how putting it on allows her to disappear which in some ways is what she wants.  Here I carried on working on black paper with white ink. I like the way that the textures of the different fabric came out in this image the fur looks fluffy.  I used wet paper in some areas which allowed the inks to run and drip as well as splattering. It was difficult to control though and this I found quite difficult as I find it difficult when I am not in total control of the image making process.  I think this is something that I need to work on as when I am less controlling sometimes the images are better. I used a Japanese brush and a straw to make this image.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

I worked on the coat again as I think that I will definitely use the coat in the final image as it has been such a large part of my daughter’s journey with depression.  In the image below I decided to be less controlled and use a ruler to make the marks as well as a Japanese brush. I used black paint, black ink and white ink. I like the way that the fur on the hood has the right texture but again the lack of control was difficult for me.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

In the image below I tried using pencil for the coat but I realised that the more fluid medium of the ink works much better in creating the textures that I want in the image.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

Below I looked at stippling and how I could create an image using dots.  This however didn’t give me the kind of textures that I wanted and the image became a bit flat. I used black in pen for this image on white paper.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

The image below is a drawing that I did copying a photograph from the cover of the Evening Standard magazine.  This image made me realise how important it is to create work that is striking. This image really caught my eye when I first saw it.   I have been working on how I can draw hands as this is something that my tutor thought I should work on.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

Assignment composition ideas 

Here I started to think about the position that my daughter sits in and how the way that she holds herself when she is feeling bad comes out in the way that she sits.  She always seems to hunch her shoulders and draw at least one leg up to her body for comfort when she is sitting. She always puts her hands in her pockets too hiding herself away as much as possible.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

The image below is my test piece which has aspects that I think worked well and aspects that did not work so well. I liked the way that the hair came out by using the making fluid and the fur on the hood, by using wet paper and ink dropped onto it.  I think that the expression shows some of the turmoil that is going on in her head. I know that using the monochrome colours can be thought of as cliche for creating the right depressing mood but I think that this does work and I think that this is the palate that I will use for the final piece. This drawing is on A3 paper, I still haven’t decided on the background although when I was working on this we were outside on the patio.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

Final Assignment Piece

Drawing 1, Part 5, Assignment

The Personal Project

I have been looking through my assessments and the reviews that I have written on the feedback from my tutor. I do find it very difficult to be dynamic in my work and this struggle to create more inventive and looser mark making runs through my work in Drawing 1.  I have made some headway with this but I still have a considerable way to go, I have however become much more aware of how quiet my work can be and this frustrates me as I work towards becoming looser and more expressive. I have worked at finding more inventive ways to work and when I manage to push my work further, this seems to be when it becomes more successful.  

My lack of confidence shows through in my work, I hate making mistakes too and both these things hold me back.  I am trying to work more in my sketchbook and allow myself to make mistakes but this is a work in progress. I have had some success with this as I have moved forward in the module, and looking back I can see how far I have come.  I do need to be more experimental and think more about what the viewer is seeing. 

I didn’t understand quite how to link my work to an artist but I am becoming better at this. Visiting galleries and looking at artists’ work has definitely helped me with this.  I am getting better at being reflective on what works and what doesn’t. I am able to see where my strengths lie too and work a little to this. I think that I can be technically correct and observation is a strength too.  My work at the beginning was too safe and still is quite safe, I need to be better at taking risks.  

I often work best when I am emotionally connected to the subject. I need to be less tentative with subjects and I think this is something that I will always struggle with.  I have chosen to work on the ‘figure and the face’ from Part 4 of Drawing one for this final assignment. Drawing people and their expressions has been difficult for me but I have really enjoyed the challenge of trying to capture some of the character of the person in my drawings.  Technically some drawings are better than others, but I have enjoyed this part of the course the most, which is why I have chosen this part for my final assignment.

Whilst working through this module my drawings skills have developed. I am now better able to use tone and colour to represent three dimensional objects and people.  Although I am not always correct when using perspective I am now more aware of how it works and how to use it in my own work. I am developing my visual language and I am in the process of being able to convey my ideas in a more coherent way. Being more experimental is still hard for me but I am beginning to understand what this means and how being more inventive can help me to find a more personal road to take my work in.

I have learnt so much about drawing and realise how far I have come in this journey. I had not drawn for sometime before starting this drawing module and had no idea of the diverse range of media and support that drawing can use.  I started in a very simple way with charcoal and pencil and this is something I have relied on too heavily. In the future I hope to push myself more and become more dynamic and expressive. I want to use more diverse mediums and techniques in order to show what I see and find my personal voice.

Artist Statement

My daughter’s struggle with depression has made a mark on me and this mark creates the emotional response that I knew I wanted to use in my work for this assignment. I intend to find, in my work a visual language that others can understand to convey what this means to me. This part has become almost cathartic to work on, as this project makes me really think about what it is to be depressed. So I decided to ask the question –

how can artists convey how it feels to be depressed to a viewer? 

As my work has tended to be confined and a bit pedestrian in the past using mostly dry media, I decided to work with ink this time. So I will produce a drawing using ink, which will be monochrome as I think that this will best fit the atmosphere that I want to create in this work.

Mental health has dominated my life for the past three years so I looked at artists who have portrayed this in their work. My tutor suggested the work of Kathe Kollwitz (1867 – 1945), she lived during the most difficult times in modern history. Her woodcuts and drawings convey the distress that she saw all around her at these desperate times. Her work helped me to understand how this distress can be shown, by the way that the person holds themselves as well as the expression on their face.  

Contemporary artist Guy Denning (b 1965)  has been influential to me in this assignment.  His work has encouraged me to come out of my comfort zone and try more explorative mark making.  Using drips, splashes and interesting marks for his work, made me think about exploring more. So I have used inks and wet paper to help describe the fur on the hood of the coat which gives it a cloud like feel, like the constant black cloud that depression gives someone.  

Using ink has helped me become looser with my mark making.  When I came to draw the face in ink, I realised that this was not the best way to describe the expression that I wanted, so I have used pencil for the face.  I may have been playing it safe, but I feel that I can justify this by wanting to create the right expression and this did not seem to work in ink. I have used line and tone in this drawing, the tones on the coat seem to work in the best way.  

I decided to work in landscape so that I could place the model (my daughter) diagonally across the paper.  I think that this worked but the main problem that I have is that there is too much background and this is something that I am not happy about.  I wanted my daughter and her position to be the focus of this drawing and have the visual impact, so I did not want the background to detract from this.  I felt that working outside gave me the best light for this piece.

In this piece I think I managed to convey something of what it feels to be depressed in the slumped position that she is sitting in, as well as the expression on her face.  She is a really beautiful girl but even with all this beauty, it doesn’t help her to feel any better about herself because she doesn’t see it. Hiding beneath that fur hood looking at the world is her way of coping with her difficult situation.

A1 monochrome using ink, wet paper, Japanese brush and making fluid.

Own image, own photograph (accessed 05/03/2020)

Assignment 4

1 – Figure Study Using Line (A1) – Research

I am interested in exploring the way that emotions are portrayed in art and how those emotions are passed on to the viewer. During the last project I worked on some drawings of my daughter and how I have portrayed her in her state of depression.  This is something that I would like to research more and see how other artists have worked on this subject. I have trouble making loose and fluid drawings so this will be quite difficult for me. Using my Japanese brush pen may help with loosening up the lines and make them more fluid so I will be exploring this in my sketchbook.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

Here I examined the use of magazine pieces and ink and pen and brush pen.  Trying to get looser in my mark making.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

Here I was looking at line and how I could use this for my assignment, just using line to draw.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

Some sketches of the seated figure drawn very quickly to see if I can loosen up.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

Her I was experimenting with the background and also looking at John Currin and his drawings.

I was really inspired by John Currin (b1962) and his work

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/82186 (accessed 19/12/2019)

This picture above in particular was very inspiring I really like the use of line and the mixture of white and black line.  I think this really helps with the description of the light and the way it falls on the face.

Assignment Piece, Part 4 – 1 – Figure study using line (A1) Seated model in an upright chair.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

My daughter always seems to want to be curled up, the way that she sits here is typical of the way that she likes to sit.  The squares behind are from magazines and they are all textures, which I my daughter finds difficult. In her depressed condition even the feel of her clothing is important, any rough texture is difficult for her.  I think that this worked well and I really like the look of the textures with the drawing on the top. The face is quite bank and this is sometimes how my daughter can look, far away and thinking. The lines to describe the wrinkles in the clothing around her body I think worked quite well in some areas.  I was looking down on her and took some photographs as well as some preliminary sketches, so that I could work with her and without her. It is tighter than I would have liked again, although I feel that I am beginning to loosen up a bit, this is getting easier but is still quite difficult.  

2 – Figure Study Using Tone (A1) – Research

I decided to use my daughter again in this assignment and started to think about tone and how I could use just tones to show her mental state.  The background needed to be dark, I felt to show the depression and I started to look at backgrounds and how this can affect a drawing. I went to see Lucian Freud ( 1922 – 2011 ) at the Royal Academy (27th October 2019 – 26th January 2020, this was very inspiring.  I found his use of mirrors very interesting, the way that you can use them to add a hidden view I wanted to bring into my assignment. I really liked the idea of using a mirror, something which has become a bit of an enemy for my daughter. I used a small mirror to give another view of my daughter.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

I looked at tones and played with the way that the light hits my daughters face.

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In my research I found many artists that use tone and here I wanted to try out some new ideas using chalk, oil pastels and charcoal.

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I wanted to look at the background and how the background could affect the finished drawing. I really liked this blue which is kind of smokey in the way that I applied it to the paper.  I didn’t like the white paint over the blue ink, I felt it was better with the blue ink as it was more atmospheric. 

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

I looked at a contemporary artist Guy Denning (b1965) and how he uses just tone in his drawings https://guydenning.org. His work really uses the background to enhance his work creating great atmospheres, with the faces coming out from the background.

Assignment Piece, Part Four -2 – Figure study tone(A1) – Reclining model.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

The use of the mirror in this drawing added an extra dimension to this drawing and I think that it worked. I like the composition she looks comfortable but the sadness in her face is echoed in the dark background.  I used white pencil crayon and this helped to show the folds in the fabric that show the shape of the body. Because the background was dark, I decided not to use any dark clothing and use an artificial light. The artificial light allowed me to get the contrasts quite strong which I wanted in this piece. 

3 – A Portrait or Self-Portrait Combining Line and Tone (any size)

With this exercise I wanted to go in the opposite direction and produce a drawing that would be happy and hopefully the viewer would see the happiness in the drawing. I am getting more interested in the way that an artist can convey the emotions of the sitter in their work.

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I started by drawing my friends child as she is very happy most of the time and thought about how I could add to the happy expression on her face.  I started to think about the background and how this could add to the feeling of being happy.

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

I looked at colour and felt that sunshine yellow would be the most appropriate although it is probably the usual colour to use for happiness. Then I started experimenting with gold.

Own Photograph from the National portrait gallery (accessed 19/12/2019)

 I visited the National Portrait Gallery a few months ago and when I was there I saw the contemporary artist Suzi Malin’s (b 1949) work on Elton John. I really wanted to use some gold on my portrait as I loved the way that she used it.

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Here is my friend Malcolm, he has a really interesting face and is always happy.  I have always wanted to draw him so I asked him to sit for me and I took some pictures of him laughing.  I decided to use pencil for the line and tone as it is good for describing both.  

Assignment Piece, Part 4 – 3 – A Portrait or Self-Portrait Combining Line and Tone (A2)

Own photograph Own image (accessed 19/12/2019)

I hope that the features here are in proportion, I decided to do the drawing straight on because I wanted to capture all of the smile and the way that all of the face is smiling and changed by this. I wanted the image to be really light so the tones are light and the lines are light too.  I don’t think I have been too experimental in the drawing but hopefully I have made up for that with the background. I really enjoyed doing this drawing and this sense of fun I think is in this portrait.

I have really enjoyed this part, I have been most interested in portraying people as they are with different expressions and trying to show this in my work.  Sometimes it has been difficult but researching artists has really made me see how it is possible to use backgrounds, line and tone to explore this.