Drawing Techniques

In today's session we tried out a new technique of sketching that was inspired by the artist Georges Seurat. The technique involved holding out our pencils at about arms length, whilst holding our pencil like a dart and then starting at the centre of the image make small figure of 8 motions with the pencil and adjust the pressure to adjust the tonal aspects of the image. This was a strange technique to get used to because it involved going against the notion of creating an outline before adding the tone and instead create the shapes or form just with the tone. It was a bit tricky to get used to at first but overtime I adapted to the new way of thinking and got used to the little motions that I had to make, although it did hurt my arm after a while.

The first image I drew was just in plain pencil with a little bit of compositional awareness in mind and was used to help me get used to this new technique. I really like the unique look of this piece as the tone is gradually built up from the pencil marks and this new idea of creating a image without the aid of line really opened up to me as a area of exploration after doing this particular piece. However, although I tried to keep the best compositional ideas in mind as I was creating this, I had failed to make a compelling composition out of the image because of the fact the image was improvised from the centre of the page I had no idea how the final image looked and it unfortunately lacked any of the compositional ideas and techniques that I learned last lesson. 

This was the second image of the explorational stage of this new technique but I decided instead of using pencil this time around, I instead used fine-liner and the reincorporation of line to explore the full potential of this new technique. I even added water to the piece to incorporate more tone into the piece and create a shadow like effect. I like the composition of this image a lot better then the first one because it incorporates a lot more elements/ objects into it and there isn't so much negative space that it makes the image look small and unfocused. However, my foreshortening technique isn't up to par in this image as I have flattened the brush so it looks like its standing up when it actually is lying down. Also I don't like how the bristles of the brush turned out and I wish I didn't add water to it because it looks messy and unlike real bristles that you would find on a brush.