EDAM Term 2: The Creative Process ( large scale drawing) week 1

Tony Hull  was leading the next project  on behalf of Faith Vincent  looking  at relationships between drawings, what drawing does to looking,  what to do with the outcome. 

We taped 2 A1  sheets together and stuck it on the wall and then chose an object  from the selection of kitsch small item ( I chose  the small fork lift truck). Holding the object, we made continuous line drawings in charcoal, not looking at the object, turning the object in your hands.

 The drawings were rubbed down and further layers added , on different scales.

 We then wrapped our object in newsprint  paper and repeated the exercise , felling it, making large scale drawings.

 We then taped together 4 long paintbrushes with a piece of charcoal taped to the end  to make a very long wobbly stick - it  gave a  very different kind of mark!

After lunch, a session on composition ( thinking beyond the rule of thirds) - how the eye scans horizontally and vertically, predisposed to find edges. Rather than placing image in the middle, placing it off centre makes it more interesting. Making  larger positive and negative shapes and bringing objects  closer to the boundaries creates tension in the spaces around . Painting off the paper brings attention to the edges, opens space beyond the limits of the paper, abstracts.

The process is organic , responding to the marks that are already on the paper

We looked around at everybody's work  and place charcoal ticks in the areas of the drawing where your eye is NOT drawn to ( often edges, corners) . Then the decision was whether to do something about it or leave the space . In my case  I worked on the top left but liked and left the space on the top right hand side - you don't necessarily want the same kind of mark all over. 

I then played around with placement of a large version of the wrapped object on the space ( interrupted by fire drill and evacuation of the building which took a while…)  

I finished off  with using  both charcoal and eraser to define the shape , taking off marks selectively  giving a sense of transparency and layers . Working so large was exhausting!