Friday 26 April 2013

Project: Detailed Observation. Exercise:Line Drawing Detail








I completed this exercise on 22nd Feb 2013.

I found this quite difficult as the temptation to use shading was almost overwhelming. 
The instructions were to try not to lift my pen from the paper. On the first drawing of the fennel I have to admit that I didn't really make much of an attempt at that. Especially when making a suggestion of the texture of the foliage I frequently lifted my pen. I used a variety of thicknesses of lines to suggest the difference between the deep clefts between the layers of the bulb, the ridging of the stalks and the feathery quality of the foliage. I tried to place the drawing on the paper to fill as much of the space as possible. I used fine-liner for the fennel.

I used india ink and dip pen for the savoy cabbage as I though the less controllable nature of this and variable line thickness would lend itself well to the knobbly texture of the cut leaves. I still did not manage not to lift my pen (using the necessity of dipping into the ink as an excuse).  However, each layer of leaf is formed by a single line. Unfortunately in going back and forth across the paper I forgot that the ink was wet and made a big black smear down by the stalk.

On the artichoke I went back to the fine-liner. I managed considerably better with the head of the artichoke at not lifting my pen by retracing back over areas I had already drawn. However, it is clear that when I went on to the ridged texture of the stalk I abandoned it in favour of individual lines.


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