A Sense of Space - Drawing at the National Gallery

 Our homework after last weeks session  at the National Gallery was to find 3 drawings with a sense of space which we then discussed at the start of the lesson.  A fellow student brought in a copy of this sketch by Charles Martin  - I love how it's not drawn with the same level of detail all over - at first glance you can't tell immediately what it is but that the shapes are pleasing. I brought in a drawing of trees by Hockney with it's textbook perspective  but what we were all intrigued by was the economy  of '8 lines, Porthmear' by Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham, a favourite of mine - the overlapping lines, the gaps between, the aerial perspective.

 Then we looked at 2 Cezanne paintings in Room 45, analysing them for the same qualities that give a sense of space including tone and contrast and drew them in 10-15 minute sketches.  

Then  to room 29 and analysis and drawing of works by Rubens, more of a challenge to work out what's going on, leave out the detail and simplify in 2 different approaches. 

Both me and my sketchbook were covered in graphite by the end of the session - so much for  using 'clean' materials (although to be fair they specify use of 'dry'). As I was using both sides of the paper  in my sketchbook, I ended up with traces of previous sketches rubbing off on other ones - some benefitted, but mainly not! I used masses of fixative when I got home along after lots of rubbing out- I'll be taking a piece of paper to put between the sheets next time! I should have known better seeing as we were using graphite covered paper to achieve just that effect in Puglia.