Weekly Update

This week my main focus was developing a concept through mood boards and mindmaps. With an unclear idea of the route I wanted the Sequential project to take, I produced an Arctic, Jungle, Coastline and Forest mood board looking at all aspects of each theme: old photos; illustrations; contextual studies; tribes or villagers lifestyles and movies connecting to the place. From here, I decided that the Arctic had a broader scope and I was interested in the contrasting culture. Lost in the depths of Pinterest, I stumbled into the world of Eskimos and decided they had to have a place in my triptych world! Their patchwork coats and huge fluffy hoods inspired me to design a character which will hopefully be the bases for my arctic inhabitants.

Initial Eskimo sketch

In addition to the Sequential project, I also have a figure drawing project running for the next 6 weeks. During the 2 sessions my drawings have improved with a bigger focus on proportions of the human form. Life drawing isn't something I've done before so I found it challenging to start with, especially with limited time frames. I enjoyed using charcoal as it provided good contrast and when I was more confident getting the initial structure, it was a good way of filling negative space. Hopefully in the next few weeks, I will be able to develop a universal way of drawing humans from different angles so it becomes more natural and the process of getting the proportions will be quicker. In future sessions I will continue to try different materials like the carbon paper I used this week; it was challenging as I couldn't see what was being transferred through to the paper until the end which was quite funny to see some of the odd results! The most demanding task was when the male model walked around the inside of our canvases pausing with each step for different amounts of time. With each pose, the time limit got shorter down to 1 second to draw the pose (as shown below!)

Some of the figure drawing pieces

Since starting this blog about a week ago, my focus has been divided with 2 projects and weekly blog posts on the go so it's definitely gotten harder to manage my time equally between them. I'm very used to spending most of my time on my sketchbooks making them visually interesting as the process and research behind the final artwork has always been my favourite part so hopefully I'll manage to keep on top of everything. As for what's next in my project, I want to start thumbnailing ideas for my triptych and experiment more with collage materials like researched artist Clover Robin. Experimenting will allow me to gain a clearer understanding of my options as I don't want to narrow down my idea too soon and risk losing some of the developmental processes.