Week 1
This week we had to study motion. This involved learning about the joints of the hip, knee and ankle in legs and practising to draw them. We began to draw from photographs of Michelangelo’s “David” and also used “Frank” the skeleton to get a three-dimensional look at the body. “David” was used because all of the muscle and tissue can be seen clearly, pushed up against the skin and show the tone of the leg and its joints perfectly as a sculpture.
After this, videos and GIF’s were shown of athletes running, fencers fencing and figures turning on the step to march away. This proved very difficult to draw for me, as it was all happening very fast and I’d never experienced drawing in quick movement like this before so I’m hoping we get more practice because I need it! In the time that we had I only got round to drawing a few figures in the steps of the GIF. Will need to learn to draw faster and be braver with my sketching.
Towards the end of the week, we were asked to go out into Cheltenham Town and draw passers-by to try to practice life drawing in motion. (It is always better to draw someone who doesn’t know you’re drawing them too as they act natural!) I chose to go and sit on the Promenade, and found this difficult too. I preferred to draw the people on bicycles as they seemed more lively and had to balance while stopping at traffic lights for example. I enjoyed watching the feet work with the pedals and the cyclist leaning forwards and backwards into the handlebars for momentum or stopping to chat. I tried to use blind contour and continuous line drawing as this is faster and more accurate to what my eye is trying to tell my brain it can see, and they are more lively and have more personality, so I like to draw figures this way. So far I’m quite happy with them, but I want to do more as it doesn’t look like I’ve done much. I also found that you could tell how a person was feeling or how young or old or well or ill in health they were by the way they walked. Some stooped, some strutted, and I tried to capture that as quickly as possible, but don’t feel like I have a lot of drawings at all so I intend to practise further. I enjoyed this a lot more than the videos in the studio. This was more frustrating and difficult, but I think it was better practise and it was fun to watch people go about their normal day and trying to capture everything in a simple image.
Week 3
On Tuesday we set up easels in the drawing room and had to only use charcoal to draw the person opposite us. I had josh, and found this task extremely difficult and I’m not happy with my work at all. I was gutted. I don’t use charcoal, and have only before a few times with life drawing, I have never got the hang of using it and my portrait looked nothing like Josh at all. I intend to practise more at home so in the next session where I have to use it, it won’t be as embarrassing and I’ll feel more comfortable.
As I was working last week, I couldn’t go to the Pittrivers museum in Oxford, but I thought I’d been there three times anyway before, so this may have been a wasted journey anyway. Instead, in my spare time, I continued with my sequential narrative module researching into that and sketching. This week, with advanced drawing, I went out into town and had to draw people at work, in their daily lives. I went to the coffee shop, and draw a barista, a traffic warden, and a builder on a construction site. It was tough finding people who work outside to draw, especially due to the bad weather, but I found a few people and am happy with my progress. I like mixing and matching different media on the same page as I feel it is more visually appealing, and tend to overlap if I need to; I just don’t like to restrict myself with the boundaries of the drawing before. I worked outside so I didn’t have to intrude on people’s workplaces, or buy a meal in a restaurant to draw a waiter or anything like that. I also like the way people react to the weather, and their surroundings, taking caution more around the roads, for example. I first noticed this when we had to do the motion drawings a few weeks ago. The next brief is to draw someone at work inside, and to solely focus on this job, spending a few mornings there a week. I’m thinking about asking the cobbler or someone who has a traditional practice but does a lot of different things throughout the day, such as polishing, fixing, key cutting, I could draw the machinery, etc too.
Week 4
The first task this week was to set up the easels again in the drawing room and draw a lady playing the violin for us. It was nice to have an instrument, as I’ve never drew a musician before and her poses/posture changed a few times. She even warmed up by stretching beforehand, and was changing the music papers throughout and tweaking her violin. I tried to do some blind contours, continuous lines and some realistic ones too to mix it up. I used the charcoal stick mostly, to become more familiar with it, and I and now happier using it. It’s a useful tool and I will continue to practice with it.
Towards the end of the week I went in search of my subject in their area of work for me to draw from and decided to use a cobbler who let me watch the shop while it was quiet, so he could do more work. I got to draw him a bit and when he wasn’t there, and out the front I drew his tools and equipment. (The shop is very small so there wasn’t a lot of room for us to be busying ourselves around each other), but he was still grateful for the extra pair of hands and was flattered by my sketches. I will go back next week to get more done.
Week 5
This week I just went back to the cobblers to draw more and continued with my other modules as I didn’t have a lot to do. Very happy with these. 
Week 6
Tuesday. Jen is ill today so she isn’t here to see our progress, give us tutorials or set us anything new, so I went online to look for any events that were happening around town and found the new art gallery is open and has three exhibitions in, so I will go there to practice drawing people in motion, walking around and viewing the artwork. 
Week 7
Today we took a drawing trip to St Fagan’s in Wales to do some location drawing, and to just draw what we enjoy to draw. Will add more as I do them, but these will be from photographs as it was a really rainy day and I couldn’t stand outside for long without ruining my sketchbook.
Week 9
During last week (Week 8) I didn’t do much of this module as it was the deadline for the Sequential one, so at the end of the week in my spare time I just personally practiced drawing some hands in my favourite style, and a natural style, as Kieran said I should try to do more as they are one of my weak points. I think they are quite successful, but I also think that this is probably because I was able to take a lot of time on them, draw them big, and focus. If I was to shrink them down and apply these quickly to moving figures I don’t think I would be able to draw them as well as this. Technique: Blind Contour/Continuous Line and Life Drawing 
Week 10
This week I went to the Beechwood Shopping Centre to draw different perspectives of the inside of the building and facial expressions of people and their gestures. I didn’t enjoy this very much at all because again, it is difficult to capture people in a short space of time and the building wasn’t very interesting to draw so I won’t be going here to draw again. The notes with our drawings Kieran suggested we do to remember poses after the subject had left however, was very useful and enabled me to complete my sketches for a short time afterwards.
Week 11
The brief today was in connection to our Christmas break brief and will relate to it. We had to go out and get “ingredients” for a narrative or piece that illustrates the process and journey of someone going to purchase a Christmas present. I thought it would be useful to draw people window shopping and let the choice in present be a big element in it, but it was difficult to find people who were doing this and it was very cold to draw outside. I managed to draw three different perspectives of the shop I was going to use so I was happy with this and my choice in media. I think I am also improving in drawing people’s faces, which I find difficult. Again, the note-taking helped, so I tried to do more of this and get into the habit of it.
Week 12
This week I was ill so didn’t attend this session, but heard it was on a subject or figure conveying something, and we were given the words: joy and surprise. I did this at home and chose to ask my friends to pose for me. I did a blind contour and continuous line drawing of a man surprising a woman with a bunch of flowers, and her being joyful.
Week 13
This week whilst at home I referred back to the Christmas break brief and went to my local allotments to document some families uprooting their vegetables ready for their Christmas dinners the following week. It was very cold and the place was empty a lot of the time, so I returned after a few days closer to the time and a grandfather let me draw him while he dug up some potatoes. I am very happy with these drawings, although some I had to draw from photographs as the weather got bad and was making my sketchbook wet. It is definitely easier to draw from a stationary target!
The Christmas brief relates to the one we had a few weeks ago about people shopping, buying presents for others. If I were to develop this further I think a wordless sequence of illustrations would be best, with images of the Christmas markets on the high street and the journey of one coming home from a shopping journey to uprooting ingredients in their garden to cooking a feast for the family on Christmas day, then the exchange of the presents around the table. I feel this would tie all the imagery together and I could use my practice of drawing facial expressions from previous weeks for this too. Here are some thumbnails of a sequence idea with the composition of the character in relation to my scenes of information I have collected.
Week 14
Today we were given this text, and after being shown videos of old films with strange perspective in (Hitchcock), was told to illustrate this with figures in some way. “It isn’t easy to understand exactly what she is saying, for one doesn’t know whether she is speaking ironically or seriously, it’s mostly serious, but sounds ironic.” I chose this to be a conversation someone would be eavesdropping on, so went to the refectory, and sat upstairs by the balcony and tried to get the hang of the awkward perspective of the large food hall. I drew two people having a heated discussion downstairs and some people leaning over the rails and combined them.
Week 15
This week we again looked at films, but this time they were mostly black and white, and we were looking at the lighting, abstract-ness of the shapes of normal things, and the stark contrast between figures buildings and objects. We had to go out and find these type of places to draw ourselves, so I sat on my window ledge and looked down on the courtyard and at the roofs near our studio, then went down to the refectory again like last week and tried to show the light coming through the windows and trees with simple lines and an ink pen.
Week 16
We came in today to objects scattered over the tables in formations. Lumps of wood, pieces of brass, random parts of what seemed like a sculpture, and we simply had to life draw them, then in different positions from other perspectives. I also used different media for this, and chose just two of the object bundles and tried to get as many different ways around them as I could.
In the afternoon session, Kieran asked us what we saw in these drawings, and to try to relate this to our other project. In the children’s illustration module I am doing a book on animals, so tried to focus on this, but could only see the sharp rises and falls on the silhouette of the wood, and this reminded me of sand dunes, so I drew what was in my mind’s eye, with a graphite stick. I added the camels to relate both projects, but didn’t feel happy with my lack of inspiration.
Week 17
Today we were shown videos by the directors and films I have taken note of below, and made paper telescopes to tray and capture moments we wouldn’t normally see, and to train our eye to solely focus on certain points in our eye line and vision. I felt this helped a lot to frame the image I was drawing, as has the “postcard” shaped boxes around my images and thumbnails I have been taught to use the last few weeks. I at first drew the roof next door, then a zoomed in version with the telescope, as the film-makers did in the tutorial, but I was slow at this work and didn’t get a lot done, although I practiced with different media. Enjoyed it though, even if i did look silly with a makeshift telescope!
Week 18
Was working during the lecture this week so I missed it, here is some more personal practice.
Mouse from a children’s book (HB pencil)
Cat from next door (Fine liner & 4B pencil)
Week 19
Went to Bristol zoo this weekend, and took my sketchbook for some more personal practice. Drawings animals is my strong point and I enjoy it the most. Due to my lunch, sketchbooks and the long journey I tried to take minimal and only dry media so I have used here; charcoal, graphite, a HB pencil, fine liner, and (blue and black) biro. These are very simple, fast sketches, and not many as most of the animals were moving around a lot or in their sheltered enclosures out of view. It was also hard to get out my sketchbook and concentrate on drawing if there was a crowd of people pushing around to see certain animals. Next time I will go in the week when the zoo will be less busy. I enjoyed drawing the elephants the most as these were easy and there were a lot of different viewpoints for me to use. I am very happy with my anatomy proportions of the horses too, as I used to find these quite difficult to draw. (I apologise for the bad scanning and photographs.)
Week 20
This week I was working again so instead of attending lecture and missing out completely I caught up on some drawing the weekend by visiting my friend and her pet cats who were very still for me and lovely to draw. I used the same media and technique as I did on my neighbour’s cat, as I found this very sharp and successful, (fine liner (blue and black) and 4B pencil.) The kitten was more difficult to draw as she was playing but again, I am very happy with her proportions and markings and feel I am improving. Ran out of sketchbook so this was on grey paper.
Week 21
I missed this week’s session but found out it was on tone, using the casts of heads the tutors had made the week before, so I did this in my own time to catch up. I enjoyed doing this and think my skill of using charcoal is improving. I used pencil beforehand and this really helped me to get definition to the shapes of the face. Drawing a still figure is a lot easier for me rather than a moving one, and you can clearly see the difference of quality between both types of work. It also helps me to draw within thumbnails or postcards so I can get the size of the figure correct.
Jode Thomas 