To begin any project, it helps to sketch things out.
DRAWING:
Drawing something builds a relationship with the subject
matter, and deepens your understanding.
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Try drawing from a seated position.
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Do some timed warm up drawings.
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Measure the proportions – use your thumb, eye
squint, or the end of a pencil to help you measure
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Try standing at an easel.
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Draw from different points of view.
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Compare the sizes and the shapes.
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Look at the details.
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Look at the whole.
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Observe the perspective – look at line direction.
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Find the angles, the light and size
relationships.
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Do some thumbnail drawings –
Remember that warm up drawings are usually messy. Keep
going.
Continue to investigate the composition – take notes.
GRID PHOTO:
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One way of drawing, is to take a photo, print it
out in grey scale, and then draw a grid over it.
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Using a bigger piece of paper, draw a bigger
grid.
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This helps to transfer and scale up the image to
whatever size you want.
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Who knew there was so much maths in art?
TRACE:
Using a lightbox, or, in my case, masking tape at the
window, trace over your scaled up drawing.
TONAL PAINT TEST:
PAINTED PAPERS:
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Paint 7x A2 size, pieces of paper, ranging from
white, gradually increasing in tone, until the last page is painted black.
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Make sure you have enough paint before you
begin.
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I didn’t do that, and I ran out of black
paint.
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I painted some papers using Green-black, as an
experiment, but ended up driving in to the art shop in town to get more black.
FINAL COLLAGE:
GLUE, SCISSORS, TWEEZERS:
You might want to use a variety of glues. I used spray
adhesive and a glue stick.
I also used the smallest tweezers I could find, and my
embroidery scissors were a godsend.
PHOTO SLIDESHOW:
ORIGINAL FRANKIE:
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Although nothing beats drawing from life,
Photographs can be helpful reference material. They are also great when the
light is fickle and has constant changes.
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Photographs of the process are great ways to
document your work.
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Documenting your work is really important as an
artist, and taking photos can sometimes help you see things you may have
missed.
THUMBNAILS:
Thumbnail sketches allow you get the structure of a
drawing right before you begin.
TRACE:
I traced the original drawing a couple of times.
TONAL TEST:
I found it helpful to start the process of blocking in
painted tones on a second tracing, just to help me work out where the lights
and the darks were, and where to put them on the paper.
PAPER PATTERNS:
Rather than just cutting straight into the painted
papers, I made paper patterns, using photocopy paper first.
That way, I could easily measure and trace the right size and shape onto my painted paper.
GEL MEDIUM EXPERIMENTS:
Creativity breeds creativity.
Often one project inspires another. Just be careful to
not get too side tracked just yet!
EXPERIMENTS IN THE VISUAL DIARY:
Visual Diaries are the places where you get to work out –
how much detail to include? And What to leave out?
RIPPING PAPER, TESTING LAYERS:
Test your materials, rip or cut the paper, build up the
layers.
There is always a lot of planning to any art work.
MAKING A MESS:
Bless the mess.
The creative mess is a happy mess.
GRANNY FLAT STUDIO:
And sometimes the creative mess spills out of the studio and into the granny flat!
GEL MEDIUM EXPERIMENTS:
The side track project.
Experimenting with photocopies and gel medium.
I think it depends on the type of ink in your printer.
Some of these worked out ok, and others weren’t so great.
My black ink was almost out – hence the green.
The gel acts as a release for the ink.
I wouldn’t mind painting over these, and seeing what else
I could do with them.
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