Monday, 26 May 2014

Discover textures you can re-create using your scribbled drawing techniques. I’ve taken a walk around the garden and can see a wide range of different scribbles – sorry – textures. You might find a walk around a park, a vegetable or flower market or a walk along a country road or even a house plant or vase of flowers will give you similar inspiration.

Look at just one texture at a time to scribble. Maybe add a neighbouring texture, as in the edge of lawn with an over-hanging shrub or a tree trunk with surrounding ferns. (A whole garden or landscape is ambitious at this stage!)

Use different types of drawing pens/pencils/crayons but suggest you don’t try to juggle with different colours yet.

Look carefully at your texture patch and scribble way with marks that seem to be closest to your observed texture.

Perhaps a light scribble will give you a ‘skeleton’ of your observed texture which you can then build on. See the first three images of the shrub, the first stage of scribble and the final scribbled texture.

Use different markers to make combinations of soft, fine, heavy types of marks.

Make vigorous, energetic scribbles, sometimes turning the sketchbook page around so you can get a better ‘swing’ with your marker.

Notice where the textures might need a heavier, darker scribble – change your marker for a darker one or press more heavily.

Monday, 19 May 2014

Another week, another scribbling challenge. This time with added ‘doodles’.

The essence of this week’s lesson is to gradually gain a little control and thoughtfulness, but to still maintain a sense of energy and spontaneity.

Task 1 – cover small pieces of paper (about size of your sketchbook page) with a scribbled pattern – any type you like. Use a coloured paper or perhaps magazine page paper. Use the same marker and scribbles that make an all-over scribbled pattern. You could use an oil pastel and scribble lots of spiral; you could use a biro to scribble bands of long zigzag lines or lots of spiky lines in random directions; or perhaps a continuous line of curves and swirls or………….

Task 2 – Rip a section from each scribbled paper and then rip the rest up into a series of any shapes you like – strips are easy if you find the ‘natural direction’, maybe then rip the strips into smaller shapes …… rip any shapes you like but the simplest are probably the most effective.

Task 3 – Stick the larger ‘section onto one page and arrange the smaller fragments on the opposite page in any composition you like.

Task 4 –Now to the ‘doodling’ stage. Using a marker than makes a contrasting type of mark to the original marks on the scribbled paper, discover ways in which you can extend and join up the original scribbles from one scribbled strip or fragment to another. You can draw into the original scribbles as well as onto the plain sketchbook page. You could extend the scribble lines or may be add further lines between them. Try to reflect the original scribble style but feel free to make interesting variations in your doodles in response to the rhythms of the original scribbles. Notice how the scribbled felt pen spirals have been developed into doodles of twirls and curls as the finer pen lines meander around across the void and then ‘land’ onto the next scribbled paper strip and snake their way in amongst the original spirals again.

Task 5 – Rip up a scribbled paper and make an interesting composition onto another scribbled paper – a good way of using some of those surplus fragments!

Monday, 12 May 2014

I hope that you now feel ‘loosened up’ after last weeks lesson! It is great to see a few pages from your sketchbooks on Facebook. Thank you for posting them. You can start at any time you like, so if you wish to join in, just get your sketchbook and a few markers and get stuck in!

If you found Lesson One challenging, you were probably trying too hard, so try again at a time when you feel relaxed and not too tense. Scribble quickly and don’t think too anxiously about it – let your hair down as they say. (I hesitate to suggest that a glass of wine might help!)

Now to LESSON TWO – Vigorous scribbling continues but with a twist. Scribble up against a hard edge. This will give you a shape. Your hard edge could be a cup, credit card, cut card shapes, your hand – anything you like.

Using a piece of card can give you a positive shape as well as an outside edge. Look at the positive and negative shapes here. The outside shapes are called ‘stencils’ and the inside shapes called ‘templates’. (So the window is a stencil and its resulting square is a template.)

Overlap your scribbled areas and use different markers. I found that my pens didn’t like scribbling over the crayons, so soon learnt to use the pens first and finish with the crayons. Be mindful of what is happening on your pages and develop your own ideas from this starting point.

I started to see all sorts of ideas resulting in these – feathers, animal markings, hills, flowers. But start by playing and don’t try to create a specific ‘picture’ at the beginning; allow your ideas to start from the simple edge and then develop into more complex shapes.

Sunday, 11 May 2014

The Summer Drawing Project - first stage called 'The Pyjama Scribble' because I shall be doing this while drinking my morning cuppa and still in my pyjamas and it will be a quick, relaxed way of loosening up your drawing hand and getting in...to your drawing 'stride'. PS You don't have to be wearing pyjamas to do this! Practice this exercise this week and we'll move on to the second stage next Monday.

LESSON ONE - Finding your mark and your mark makers. What type of mark do you make most naturally? What does your hand and arm like to do? Try different sorts of marks and cover a whole page with one type of mark, turning the page around to 'play' with the way these marks look on the page. Try one type of mark today, another type tomorrow etc. Fill a whole page each day (or maybe a double page) and use different markers that you have to hand. These don't have to be expensive 'artist' pens and sticks - include the biro you write your shopping list with. What colours? Any that are to hand? A chosen range that reflects your mood?Work quickly without too much 'contrived' planning. Be spontaneous, relaxed and enjoy.Try to leave your sketchbook and tray of collected markers out in a place that you can sit at tomorrow when you turn your page and experiment with another type of mark. Try to do this each day. Would you like to share your favourite page? Please show us all next weekend by leaving a message and an image attached to this 'lesson'.