Large Scale Sketchbook Week 6: Watercolours ,Frottage and Cutouts

My homework from week 5 of Large Scale Sketchbook  was   to  add tonal  values in ink to the original drawings I'd done on  at the Cast Courts   as I'd liked the contrast of the rough dark backs  with the finer, lighter  details of the fronts of the busts. When it came to it , I couldn't bear  to 'spoil' the original drawings so  I used marker pen on a photocopy ( above ) and then made tracings  of photo/drawings and traced those into my sketchbook and  used 'Payne's Grey' watercolour rather than ink (below).     

  While I was waiting for Tony to photocopy  these tonal paintings in different sizes, I had a go at some 'frottage' with graphite around the cut edges from previous  weeks work and then played around with overlaying them over different page spreads.

When I got my photocopies back , I was delighted to find he'd done some combining the tracings with the tonal sketches  with unexpected results  which I stuck in the book, cut out sections and added  further watercolour washes.  

 I then started extending some of the lines  and shapes onto other pages.

 After trying out different places to put my 'frottage' , liking the sparsity  of some earlier pages , I combined it with cut out shapes from photocopies

Getting into cutting out, I  layered a photocopy with a sheet of black paper and a sheet of graph paper and cut through 3 at once then reassembled them.  Having picked out  some of the black shapes, I taped down with masking tape the random collection on the opposite side .

I posted this on Facebook   as it was my favourite  page spread only to have a comment that the left hand page looks like Donald Trump!! That's all I can see now ( it wasn't obvious when viewed as an A2 page)  and it brings poignancy  to the right hand side , a  shattered figure bowed down with horror and shame??

My talk with Tony  was right at the end of the session so we were looking through 2 weeks work. As there are so many cutouts and change of perspective  when you turn a page , he thought it would work well as an animation  (perhaps something to consider filming when I finally bring the book   home ). We also discussed  starting to introduce more detail and variety of mark and change of materials .So far  I've been responding and reacting to the scale of the sketchbook with big bold  marks.  Right at the end of the session we had a  quick look at other peoples (very varied) sketchbooks, a couple of people had contrasted areas of very dark charcoal  with delicate fine lined drawings which I really liked.  The  pages above  from last week show some of these  characteristics   so that's what I'm going to concentrate on  in this week session: more drawing , less cutting. 

Large Scale Sketchbook Week 5 : working with drawings

 Week 5 of Large Scale Sketchbook  and because I'd missed 2 sessions, I was first to have Tony's input into how I might use the 'data' collected in the Cast Courts  to  work with in the sketchbook. Some very interesting ideas  which I  tried to record quickly in my notebook before I forgot it all! Way too much for 1 weeks  work.

1. When I  looked through my photos alongside my drawings, I was struck by how the shapes in the helmet etc echoed  and interacted with those of the architecture. I also liked the details of sculptures in the background, how they play with your sense of scale and space   and the strange juxtaposition

 2. Looking  at tone, the contrast of the rough, dark,  backs with the finer, lighter,  details of the fronts of the busts . Homework:  add  tonal values in ink to the original drawings , to photocopy next time. 

3. I'd taken lots of photos circling around the subject  from different viewpoints ( and different interactions with the background). We talked about how I might combine all these images together to make  a sort of 3 D version. It would probably work better as a separate 'artists book' ( perhaps star shape)  but  if I wanted to work with it in the sketchbook itself, perhaps I could use a concertina structure using a couple of pages?  I had printed out thumbnail  'contact prints'  so cut out the relevant ones and stuck them in my notebook to remind myself of what to print out for next week. Perhaps tracing of the shapes and overlaying them would work..... 

So many possibilities, I started  as most people did   combining  photocopies of drawings and photos,  cutting out shapes, adding  extra drawing to make linkages between different elements.

  Already looking interesting looking at repetition of shapes  and lines 

This started  with cutting out the bust from a photo then extending the lines  with graphite

Then I cut through the pages  and the applied fairly strong  ink wash 

Applying more ink to the back, the layers are beginning to look interesting  and starting to lose sense of what you're looking at 

My favourite double page spread - I like the shapes that are developing around the figures, the contrast between the white space and the complexity. 

The list of things to do before the next class is growing.  Besides  adding  darker tones to my original drawings  and printing off more photos,   I was thinking back to some of the  lessons I learnt from the collage course: making rubbings of layered collage   and combining cutouts and tracings. Must add tracing paper and masking tape to my list.