Thursday 13 January 2011

Abstract charcoalism...

Seven words I have never uttered until today: "Drawing beyond boundaries was actually fun today". Mostly because I usually wish I had stayed in bed within the first 20 minutes of the class. 


Today was different for some reason. Ambrose tasked us with first copying one of our small sketches onto brown paper with charcoal. The paper was about 2 x 3 feet. I don't know how many millimeters that is. A million or so I think. 

I chose the isometric drawing below to copy thinking it would be easy to get done so I could leave. I didn't know that we were going to build further on the drawing, so my mind was set to quick task completion.  





After we got the first drawing done, we kept building layers on top for about 15 minutes at a time. After layer two, I put the Black Keys on the ipod and got down to business. First light shading, then dark, some scrolly bits...nice. 

By layer four I was onto a Chromeo album making some square forms followed by organic branch-like shading around the edges. I kept thinking back to my Mom's Alphonse Mucha book I had read over Christmas break. 

Mucha knew how to contrast geometric forms with organic. I love that. I love most things about Art Nouveau, but that seems to be a theme I keep coming back to. 

What else did I really enjoy about this process? Working big. Fuck drawing in little sketchbooks. I need a big canvas. I need to use my whole arm. I need to stand back four feet to see what I've done. I'll take a soap stone on a steel table over a 2B and an A2 sketchpad any day of the week. 

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