As promised in the text, this exercise was a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
Good things about it:
- I have finally got the hang of the importance of viewpoint (hooray!)
- I have appreciated the wealth of subject matter for drawing within my house – I feel as though I literally need never step outside my door again to find something to draw!
- I do feel that the free-er approach to drawing ellipses has loosened me up and I am beginning to feel much more confident with these now
Less good things about it:
- I have realised what a challenge perspective is for me – I am hanging on to the strategy of “drawing the eye-line first” for grim death
- I have struggled with proportion – I think this is particularly where I have become dragged into detail – so I draw the object a bit bigger so I can get all the interesting detail in – and then it’s too big and the whole picture ends up skewed. And even though I recognise this, I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it…..
- The light at the front of the house is difficult to manage – it is south-facing, so when the sun’s out you get great shadows, but then it goes in and the whole scene looks completely different. By contrast, the back of the house (which includes the garden room, where I have hitherto done a lot of my drawing) is north-facing – so the light is much more reliable, but doesn’t give such good shadows
I have annotated the drawings in my sketchbooks as I’ve gone along with my feelings about the subject-matter (have tried to keep it suitable for polite society) – but where things have gone wrong it is almost invariably an issue with perspective or proportion (one generally leading to the other). I have largely followed the advice about going for corners as they are more interesting – in my house this has more often than not involved doors or windows, which I hadn’t particularly considered before as a subject for drawing – they are quite intricate when you look properly at them! – fortunately ours are all quite similar so I’m starting to get the hang of them.
As far as choosing an area to work into a finished picture…some things I have tried (e.g. the staircase) have proven just too complex for me at the state I have reached – I have to say that it was when I was trying (and failing at) the view down the stairs that I really appreciated the complexity of Anthony Green’s Study which was given in the Research point – he must be quite something to have unravelled all that! On the other hand, I wanted to pick something which would push me a bit rather than playing safe. Hence I have chosen the bay window corner in the front room (view 2).
I’ve particularly gone for this one because:
- I always like sitting in the front room, it’s light and has a good feel to it
- This corner has a variety of shapes – the straight regimented lines of the windows contrasted with the folds of the curtains and the mass of the swivel chair, along with the arcing semi-circles of the lamp
- There will also be a range of textures to convey – all through my notes on this exercise I’ve been saying I need to do a lot more work on depicting fabrics and leather…so here it is….
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