Traditional art practice: Plaster Head (Week 8)

This week's study was based on a study of a plaster head.

My understanding of the human head and face has excelled during this task from last week, it has helped me identify key issues I have been having.

One of the issues I encountered was the angle I viewed the head at made me think the eye further away was higher, which perspectively, is not wrong, but when drawn, resulted in inaccuracies, to counter this, I made sure to measure the face based on the curvature to prevent further inaccuracies. 

Taking into account the white plaster head, I made sure to shade around the object and keep a low contrast to ensure there were no obvious breaks in the form of the face.

If I had to do anything differently for this task, I might have chosen a different angle, but doing it the way I did challenged my skills to try a 3/4 view and I believe it paid off.

Traditional art practice: Human Head Construction (Week 7)

This week we were tasked with drawing a skull as part of human head construction.

Taking onboard feedback from enhancement week I made sure to take some pictures of my process.

Much like other pieces of work, my understanding of the skull and head construction isn't what I thought it was, when I was viewing the skull at certain angles, the shapes didn't match up correctly, which is why I initially broke down the structure into basic shapes, mainly circles and squares.

My shading was also a lot better than previous weeks, making sure to calibrate my pencil pressure and focusing on the lightness of the material. Overall, a skull is very light, meaning not much shading is needed unless it is intensely shadowed or a drop shadow. I tried to go to the contour of the skull while also using the side of the pencil to get a much more smooth shading to the object and it has paid off.

If I could change anything about this week's task, I would make sure to investigate the hard surface of the skull where highlight immediately meets shadow to get a more accurate result for flat surfaces or in areas of strong contrast.

Final outcome

Traditional art practice: Chernobyl (Enhancement week) (Week 6)

This week, we were tasked with creating a drawn scene inspired by the disaster that was Chernobyl.

I took this opportunity to look at the images provided. Deciding it would be a good idea to incorporate the interior scene with a seemingly exterior object.

Though the bumper car wasn't on any of the images provided, I remember back to the time I played the mission All Ghillied Up on CoD 4, where the characters are sent to Pripyat. In said mission, you visit the cars and Ferris wheel.

So I thought it would be nice to add a narrative element in by bringing this car indoors, maybe someone brought it in, maybe someone tried to live in it etc.

The light rays are very good at adding to the scene composition, it helps the viewer see what time of day it is, furthermore, the forest behind would also dictate how the light comes through the window frames.

However, if I could improve this piece further, I would definitely consider adding some debris around and on the floor to give off the vibe of the explosion that occurred.

The perspective was pointed out to be wrong, the bottom of the wall would cut underneath the other wall (at the back of the room) the vanishing points did not initially align.

I chose the colours here specifically because I wanted a 'radiated' looking environment, when you think of that term, you think of green hues, which is what I did for the walls. But I did the bumper car in its original colours.

For further aesthetic development, I would like to include more colour variation, such as browns, to signify rust. This would add to the overall atmosphere.

What did I learn from this piece?

I learned that using colour isn't a particularly strong skill I have. So I would like to keep adding to this piece and use colour to help add to the atmosphere.

With these thumbnail sketches, these helped me identify pieces I could add to the work. The second thumbnail would have a pipe in the work, which would be something to add to the piece. Furthermore, elements of the first thumbnail could be added, such as a broken table.

Traditional art practice: Urban Exploration – Victorian Architecture (Part 2) (Week 5)

This week we spent our time refining our work/starting our composition.

I think the composition in my piece is very strong, especially the tree in the foreground, it breaks up the composition subtly and adds a nice effect.

Furthermore, I went over foliage with Teo and how to better emphasise objects, it was a case of branching off lines from the main trunk of the tree and using the pencil in a circular motion. Overall, I think the foliage is actually the strongest part of my piece. Constructing the leaves from a cluster of circles then erasing the top of it, which I also did with the bushes, this way it could perceive a sub surface property, but also pushes the lighting, in correlation of the building this would also make sense, making them a similar tonal value to make sure it seems like they are right next to each other.

The weakest part so far is the line work, overall, tonal values are structured well, however, some objects get lost and blend in with other objects, which would need to be improved upon for the tonal submission.

I will continue to work on the line quality and use a harder pencil or mechanical pencil to get a more defined line.

A sense of depth could be made in this piece, I would personally darken the tree in the foreground as is seems quite intrusive in comparison to the building, furthermore, the building, on the right side would need to be darkened in order to push depth and perspective more.

What did I learn from this piece?

Doing this piece helped me learn more about shape dynamic and how shape can be used to define larger objects, in this case, using circles to define leaves or using rectangles or squares to define bricks.

Traditional art practice: Urban Exploration – Victorian Architecture (field trip 1) (Week 4)

This week we went to Abbey Pumping station to start our Victorian architecture project.

We started by doing out preliminary sketches - I wanted to focus on different perspectives, there were a few images that I really liked, however I had to discard them due to them not including foliage and more organic shapes.

However, I have thought about which thumbnails I like, additionally, I had to discard the 1 point perspective due to the angle not being interesting enough. Although I could have got nice material value through the brick work for example, but due to the perspective being too linear, I had to discard them.

What did I learn from this piece?

Thumbnails can be quick and it gives you an idea of how to push composition to your final work, it gives you ideas to experiment with, re-arrange or what you could change for the final piece.

Initial thumbnail sketches

Picture example 1

Picture example 2

Traditional art practice: Material and Surface Properties (Week 3)

This week for traditional, we were tasked with analysing and drawing material and surfaces. In the case of our practical task, we were given various metal and glass objects to draw from.

Some parts of my pieces are very strong, the strongest element in the piece in my opinion is the cylindrical metal tub. Because it shows distinct sharp gradients like you would expect on metallic objects like this.

Furthermore, the background was a suggestion in order to help aid the transparency of the clearer glass.

Overall, the shading is relatively good, however, one of the main downsides was not drawing along the contour of certain objects, this is most noticeable on the darker glass bottle. My methodology behind this was the fact there were lighter areas, but were not strictly highlights, so I tried to replicate this on the object. If I had to do anything differently, I would have definitely tried to contour my line work in order to indicate shape and dimensionality.

I wasn't particularly happy with the glass globe at the bottom of my work, The shape seems wrong, moreover, the edges of the dome seem pointed, which overall makes the object look quite flat. The butterfly inside it also doesn't look particularly great, this is mainly because the glass skewed the perspective of the glass interior. But overall, I would use basic shapes in order to construct things correctly, such as drawing an ellipse where rounded objects should be, such as the bottom of the glass butterfly dome.

What did I learn from this piece?

Understanding curvature was one thing that helped push this piece, such as the indent of the metal jar, or the silver tankard, shape defining lines.

So understanding how line can define curvature helped this piece stand out.

For this week's thumbnails, I decided to discard the second thumbnail, mainly because, like previous weeks, I had issues with objects being took intrusive and having no breathing room. The glass bottle was too close to the bottle. Although it would make for nice contrast, but because they are similar size and height, it would be more difficult to identify what they are.

Analysis of Gustav Klimt's: The Kiss

This weeks contextual task consists of symbolism of geometric shapes in Gustav Klimt's painting The Kiss.

My interpretation of the shape would consist of the squares/rectangles - this could represent the emptiness of him, which could also be represented by the colour black, which represents a 'void'.

Which in combination by the more inviting coloured circles, there is the 'disruption and harmony' coming together with these shape combinations.

The female figure has more colour variation, possibly leaning on the idea of feminine stereotypes, furthermore, the shape looks like flowers, which also emphasises the male female dynamic in this piece of work.

Additionally, the yellow shape in the background reminds me of a distorted sun which helps illuminate the couple.

Gustav Klimt - The Kiss (1907-1908)

https://blog.artsper.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Klimt-Le-Baiser-644x436-1-644x430.jpg

Traditional art practice: Shape and Pattern (Week 2)

This week, we were tasked with emphasising shapes and patterns.

I tried to reflect this in my work - I believe I made a good impression on the base drapery, it shows good use of folds, furthermore, the way I went about shaping out the flower is a very strong selection of this piece, using the negative space to define the petals.

Shapes were emphasised using line, for example the curvature of the vase, furthermore adding line onto areas like the pepper helped define the texture and surface, making it readable as the object it was meant to be.

If I could change anything about the piece, I would have analysed the shell, because it doesnt seem to be too correct in terms of perspective. To break this down further I would make them in basic shapes along with making ellipses where the shell edges would be most prominent. From looking at the piece, the look very 'oval like' which skews the perspective of the shell, it would also help to add a drop shadow to perceive the depth in the scene. Additionally, I would add more curvature to the vase in order to convey the roundness of the object. Overall, the piece has very strong elements and good shading, which can be seen in the contrast of light and dark tones - using negative space and emphasising highlights.

As a point of practice, I would focus on trying to get details on white/off white objects as I find this was the most difficult thing to achieve on this piece. 

What did I learn from this piece?

Coming back to week 1's piece of work, using line to correlate tonal value helps this piece, using outside line to define lighter objects can help the viewer understand what the object is.

These are my thumbnail sketches for this week,

I decided to work on object composition, but mainly within the tray as I felt overall the composition worked really well, But I wanted to play with the arrangement of objects in the tray in order to see what worked. But I decided to go with incremental size toward the background in order to show depth. 

Traditional art practice: Contextual task (Week 1)

For this weeks' contextual task, I wanted to analyse artist Al Crutchley, who has worked on Overwatch concepts.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nEQx2r

This is a piece of work he made for Paris on the original overwatch.

The top images of line art have varying line weight, in some places, mark making has been utilised to inform the shapes and form of materials. for example, straight and horizontal lines have been used on the roof to inform the use of roof tiles. Additionally, around the windows, there are also lines which inform the idea of plaster, because it contains 'brick looking shapes' and shapes that could inform a hole where the plaster has eroded.

The booth (Middle left) lighting has been informed on this piece, for example, the top of the object is illuminated from above, you can see this by the shadow underneath. Colour has informed this piece to show materials and lighting, the darker green represents shadows whereas the lighter green informs highlights.

Furthermore, material callouts has been used for the main bit of the booth, where the greyscale represents metal which also has lighting properties, like that of the reflected blue light to also help indicate this is in fact a metal material.

The street lights also maintain this artistic choice of informed line work. the 2nd and 3rd street light have a thicker line at the base, this could be to indicate that this inner bel is the bit in shadow, this can also be used in context with all the other thicker lines on the objects.

At the bottom of the page, the bottom left pot has lighting properties. The darker (warm) grey inside and within the intruded edges represent that this is where lighting is not being caught due to it not facing the sun or light source.

The atmosphere this creates is quite muted, overwatch generally is quite a saturated game. So these colours were probably chosen in order to keep the objective of the game flowing, as to not get distracted by them.

The lights used is white, as pure light is white, but the blue glow around it represents the emissive properties, blue itself is quite a cool colour, along with the metal, this palette is a stark contrast to the warmer green/grey the booth is also coloured with.

Overall, there is a more elegant style to the work, there are a lot of curves and less hard edges (unless it's impractical to have like on the lamp post bases) The pots for example have a lot of curvature and round shape language.

In summary, the general line work is representative of its light properties, thicker lines represents darker areas within shadow and lighter ones that are thinner or blended more with the colour represents light or detail on the model.

Furthermore, line work has been used to exemplify detail that maybe couldn't achieved with colour, as concept art is quick idea generation. An example of this would be under the panel of the stall which says 'jeudi' maybe these are panels that could be opened?

This is a painting of the futuristic Paris map from Overwatch.

The style radiates art deco and has a lot of harmonising shape language, in the case of the lamp posts, you can see how the concepts could correlate to the concepts as previously mentioned in the post.

Furthermore, you can see the obvious colour contrast between purple and yellow, then the off-tone hue with reds/pinks and blues in the foreground. It gives is a royal vibe in the overall scene which helps push the composition.

A clear sense of scale also helps push the composition, the 3 point perspective gives the viewer a sense of awe.

Example of the perspective in the piece

Traditional art practice: Line and Line Weight (Week 1)

This week we did our first task back for 2nd year at university.

We went over line and line weight - overall I did a good job of emphasising certain objects, the colour and contour defines most of the shapes.

My favourite and probably the best part about the piece is the sunflower, after receiving advice from my lecturers, I could transpose a sunflower from another drawing station into my own work and it payed off because the line contour around the petals works well.

However things could be improved upon, most notably my eye for measurement has degraded since last year, although when recapping on how to measure objects proportionally to one another in a composition it should be easy to apply this to my artwork.

I have retained some of the skills from last year, like being able to accurately draw certain shapes, such as understanding ellipses and this can be seen within the work I have produced.

What did I learn from this piece?

From this piece, I learned how you can use line to control the tonal perception. In this case, the sunflower was yellow, which when put into value, it on the lighter side, it helps by using a lighter line to show the value of the object.

 

These are some compositional pieces for this week. I took it upon myself to re-arrange the composition, but overall, I discarded the 1st thumbnail because I felt the smaller objects in the scene would be overshadowed by the vase, so having a space for shapes to relax is why I decided to go with my second thumbnail.

Starter sketches