Temporary Drawings (Part 1, Warm-up Exercise)

For the very first exercise of the course I have been looking at a way to create ‘temporary drawings’.

The idea behind temporary drawings is very much how it sounds: images created with mediums that are not designed to leave a lasting impression on or within the surface it is drawn upon. Such examples can include using a stick to draw in the sand or drawing shapes on steamed up glass with your finger. For my exercise I have decided to use washing up liquid poured into a jug of water to create these drawings and have recorded a video of me doing it below.

Drawing Skills – Temporary Drawings from Alex Wallace on Vimeo.

The process has created a rather fluid, ribbon effect that slows down and speeds up with the movement of the water. I wanted to make sure the lines were visible in the water so I placed the jug in front of the window while it was sunny. The light has emphasised the yellow streams and because it was not just a single flat surface that they were projected on, the layering of the ribbons causes more darkened yellows to become apparent.

When creating the effect I made sure to move the bottle back and forth to create an image that would be far easier to see afterwards which I feel has paid off. The speed at which I would move the bottle has affected the movement in the water and even after I had stopped the momentum continued to swirl the pattern around the jug for a few seconds more before settling.

The images created remind me of caramel lattices, something that comes about in a somewhat messy way and can create something a little beautiful. Now I’m getting a bit sentimental over my washing up liquid drawing.

WELCOME

Hello and welcome to my drawing blog!

Here is where I will keep a record of my progress throughout my Drawing Skills course.

To begin with, here are a few sketches which I have done recently. By doing a little drawing each day, I hope to sharpen my skills and so what better way to do that than to draw some things on my desk, a scrunched up face and a foot!

    

(LEFT) An assortment of objects on my desk drawn wholly with a 2H pencil. I feel as though I have forced an orthographic perspective on the objects in order to align certain surfaces. I think I have caught the right amount lighting for each object in relation to each other object however using a 2H pencil has made it particularly difficult to add more contrast to the darker elements and has resulted in a very light image.

(MIDDLE) Just using a biro on this one. I started with the nose with no real intention on what it would end up like but it became a face which I believe is actually impossible to pull! When wincing, the side of your face that you are pulling in means both the eye and relative side of the mouth converge. Once I had finished the drawing I tried to pull this face myself realising that I could not scrunch my eye up on one side and snarl my mouth on the opposite. I do particularly enjoy drawing lines with a biro as there is a lot of definition that can be gained from it and shading can range from doing it lightly or heavily to add depth.

(RIGHT) Something that I knew I wouldn’t have to have move around a lot so I started drawing it (right up until the pins and needles set in). This was done with a B pencil throughout. The general shape and size I found to be the easiest part  however when trying to shade along the contours and crevices, I felt that there was some loss in detail as I wanted to make sure the major features were done to a good standard. Took about an hour to finish.

 

Well that is all for this post. I will next be onto the first exercise of the course shortly and will follow up with a post detailing my findings. Check out the Sketches tab on the top right for an archive of drawings that I will be doing and until next time, thanks for reading.

 

– Alex