Exercise: 360 Degree Studies

The aim of this exercise was to draw from the same position four 15 minute studies just by moving the chair by 90 degrees each time to show how by returning to a favourite spot time again differences can be seen just by shifting viewpoint. I chose to sit on our plot of land at the back of the house. Normally there is a spectacular view of mountains here but I was working early in the morning and there was quite a heavy mist which cleared slowly as I worked. The first view was facing North towards the mountains but I could only see a vague outline of the hills in front, the mountains were completely concealed. This view included the neighbour's tobacco drying shed at the bottom of our garden and the other neighbour's ramshackle corrugated iron stable. As my focal point I chose the peach tree in the foreground. I adhered strictly to the 15 minute guideline by setting the timer on my phone and stopping drawing when it beeped. I knew that this would help me with trying to simplify my approach. I used charcoal as I though this lent itself to rapid and expressive drawing. It took me a while to relax into the drawing. The first drawing was a bit panicky as I was so conscious of the time limit. The result was that I was less pleased with the outcome of drawing one than with the others. I din't put a lot of differentiation in tone between the foreground trees and the buildings in the middle ground so the trees are a bit confusing and difficult to distinguish clearly (the small pear tree behind the larger peach tree is particularly confused.

Looking North

Turning my chair to face East, I was looking across the corner of my vegetable patch. The veggie patch is fenced off by a saggy electric fence to deter raids from the neighbour's horse who is adept at escaping her field. Here there are two focal points, the tall fence post surrounded by courgette leaves on the extreme right of the page and the secondary focal point is the telegraph pole in the middle ground. I like this drawing. I had warmed up and was concentrating better at this point. There is a rhythm about it with the repetitive shapes of the fence posts. The diagonal of the electric fence on the left side leads the eye backwards but the leaning electric fence post leads the eye up towards the telegraph pole stopping it from being led out of the left side by the receding diagonal of the fence. The dark shrubs help the telegraph pole to stand out and the grey hills in the background give a good sense of distance.

Looking East

Looking south I was facing back towards the house. Here I hadn't really clearly identified a focal point before I started drawing. I was attracted by the hose-pipe snaking back towards the house and I suppose the focal point is the corner of the house and the dark shadow created between it and the sweetcorn plants adjacent to it.The lines created by the plough on our land draw the eye towards this point which is almost exactly at the centre of the paper. I like the contrast between this and our neighbour's land which has more closely spaced furrows going in the opposite direction. (there is no fence between our land). I have simplified the shape of the tree in the background.

Looking South

Looking west, a large amount of my view was taken up by the neighbour's ploughed field. The furrows make a good compositional structure. They converge as they move away towards the focal point of the dark clump of trees on the left side of the page. A house nestles between the clumps of trees and the shadows under grapevines create a shallow diagonal across the page leading the eye across from the focal point towards the left side.

Looking West

I really enjoyed this exercise. I think that charcoal worked very well for this and the I felt that the resulting drawings were much better than the earlier ones done with pen and neocolour. Charcoal covers an area more quickly and is more forgiving as it can be lifted out again to create lighter areas of tone in overworked areas.. I was surprised how much information I could put down in a short space of time. Using the viewfinder helped me to be selective about what to include and what to leave out of the drawings.