Part 1: Project 1: Exercises 1-3

Exercise 1: Boxes and Books

I have undertaken an exercise like this before, years ago at school, so I thought revisiting it would be fairly straightforward.  However, I struggled a little to arrange the items I had selected so that they presented interesting enough angles and perspective.  After finally settling on the setup that I thought worked best, I used pen to draw the outlines of the items, as thought they were transparent.  This was quite satisfying, as it didn’t matter if one item overlapped the other, especially as I was drawing in pen.

Unfortunately, I misjudged the space and one box edge slightly slipped off the bottom of the paper, but not enough to affect the rest of the drawing.  I would say that I don’t always get my lines completely straight, but I guess it all depends on the result you are striving for (i.e. technical or more loose).

Exercise: Jars and Jugs

I decided to turn my sketchbook round to work in portrait, rather than landscape, for this particular exercise; I thought it would serve the setup well, as most of the items I selected were rather tall.  I was quite pleased with the outcome here, as the composition I chose seems to work well in that all of the items are sitting at different distances from me, creating interest in the various sizes and shapes.

Again, I seemed to ‘loose control’ of the pencil whilst attempting to draw straight line, especially vertical ones, and this can be seen in the small can at the very front, where its base is a little wider than the top.  I also found the ellipses tricky, which is an area that I would like to practice more in future.  I seem to be able to create a convincing curve on the left-hand side of the ellipse, but when I come to the right-hand side, the curve widens a little more so I don’t always achieve a symmetrical curve.

Next, I moved on to another composition with the same items, this time feeling a little more comfortable in my attempts at drawing ellipses, and therefore using pen.  This was more successful than the last, maybe because the large bottle was on its side and I didn’t have the challenge of drawing so many vertical lines!  I have left in the pencil marks of the under drawing, which I went over with pen, and my corrections as I went along are evident as I felt in some places I had initially got it wrong.

Exercise 3: Supermarket Shop

As this exercise called for colour, I opted to draw my composition of various grocery items in pencil first, and then used a wash of acrylics.  I chose a composition that employed a number of different angles, and was rather pleased with the effect the cereal box had; lying on its side on the table, almost completely vertical with just a hint of an angle.

I constantly switched my eyes between objects whilst drawing, to make sure I had dimensions and positioning correct.  The only thing I wasn’t pleased with was the fact that the next of the ketchup bottle wasn’t completely symmetrical – another aspect of drawing that I sometimes struggle with.  However, I didn’t want to hide this by rubbing out and starting again, so I proceeded with the colour and tried to use this to model the shape of the bottle into looking more realistic.

Unfortunately, I managed to pick up blue paint on the heel of my hand and this inadvertently smudged onto the bottom-right of the painting; I did my best to mask this, however finally thought it best to leave well alone to avoid ruining the whole thing!

Conclusion

I accept that the shape and size of some of the objects I have drawn here are not completely accurate; if I were painting a more detailed picture, I would maybe use the gridding up method to get the dimensions just right.  However, this is not a method to rely on too often, and I want to work at my observation i.e. looking up at the objects more when working, so that I can execute much quicker, accurate drawings.  Overall, though, I am pleased with the drawings as a whole, as the small mistakes I have made are not entirely evident until one looks much closer, and do not detract from the drawings in any noticeable way.

Although a rather short project, it has certainly been worthwhile doing as I have come to realise that I need to practice further some of my basic shapes (ellipses) and lines.  As these are so fundamental in terms of drawing, I clearly need to be practising these more and will look at devoting some sketchbook pages to more of these exercises.