ink and rain

This morning, I tried to work on my landscape drawing. I was drawing a bridge in Overton park. I think it's the same one we saw on examples in class. I started by practicing in my sketchbook, and after about an hour I was still on the same sketch. I liked how it looked, but it took so much time! Just when I thought I was done with sketching, and thought that it's time to start on the big sheet of paper, my ink was knocked over by the wind and it spilled all over my sketchbook and my jeans... so I had to go and get new ink on Union Ave after I cleaned everything as much as I could. I wasn't upset about the clothes or sketchbook, I just hated to waste time on going back and forth.. So, when I got back to my spot and was ready to start, it started to rain... I waited, then went to the car, but it wouldn't stop..besides the light wasn't that great. so I took some pictures of the place, and I will come back tomorrow afternoon and try it again! hopefully, it doesn't rain!!

here is the location:

this is me sketching as the rain starts drizzling :)

my poor sketchbook

Drawing at night

I ended up putting this homework up until the last night before class.

Monday night, I left school at 11:30 pm after working on my other homework for the Ceramics class. Came home at midnight, started to draw around 12:40am, very very reluctantly.. what kept me going was hot tea and dark chocolate. I was literally falling asleep!

I drew the side door to our house. Every night, when I was coming home from school, and was walking towards it, I thought that I should draw it one day. I really liked how the little lamp by the kitchen door would cast soft light, creating interesting lines of shadows...

so anyway, I got it done by 3 am..wasn't sure if it was completely finished or not, and apparently it turned out pretty good :)

Videos demonstrating good contrast

So, when I was looking for a video or an animation, I thought about looking up some kind of shadow theatre video. The use of only white and black, the light and the shadow against the light, creates a very good contrast and a bright picture. This is the first video:

As I was looking for more videos, I came across videos by a dance theater called Pilobolus. They use shadows of their bodies to create images on a light screen. Probably some of you know about them, but I have never heard of or seen them before. They are pretty amazing!

This is a video from their performance at Late Night show with Conan O'Brien (i love the dog in the video it just made me smile :)

here's a Hyundai commercial. this is an incredible way of art!

and another one from them:

Examples of strong contrast and positive/negative space relationship

First one is an English/American artist Clare Leighton. She is mostly famous for her wood engravings. She has illustrated many books. Also, a lot of her works picture everyday life of factory workers, fishers, farmers, good old people who work on the land. I discovered her amazing work at Dixon Gallery (by the way her exhibition is still on: http://www.gomemphis.com/news/2010/jul/09/painstaking-images-on-wood/, go see it!!)

Her prints are very intricate and sophisticated. I can't imagine how much time and skill it would take! Also, the whole process of wood engraving makes the artist to think of positive and negative, black and whites in a kinda backwards way, because places you don't touch will remain black, the places that you cut most will be the whitest. It's the same principle as in charcoal erasure technique.

Next artist is Felix Vallotton, a Swiss painter and printmaker. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut. His reductive woodcuts have really sharp blacks and whites, and are really good examples of contrast and dynamic between positive and negative space.

I really like this one's composition and the idea:

The last guy is a contemporary photographer Rodney Smith ( http://www.rodneysmith.com/)

I really like his compositions and subjects of his photos. He works a lot in black and white photography. Here are some of his photos:

This one's composition is simply brilliant and it looks almost surreal, interesting positive and negative shapes and lines, really good contrast:

Back to drawing!

Hello all, welcome to my blog. This is my second semester at MCA. I came to this school because I was offered a scholarship :0) I don't regret about my decision, as I really like studying here! I'm going to be majoring in Illustration and try to learn as much as I can about Printmaking along the way, because I'm interested in it too :o)

When I graduate, I want to be an illustrator of children's books, and live and work home in Ukraine.

Drawing is my favorite thing to do, so I'm really excited about this class and this semester!

Self-evaluation

This semester was really productive for me, at least I was trying my best to get as much as I can out of it. For real, when I think about it, it is still a miracle for me that I got all the way here to this foreign country, and can go to this cool school and learn all this cool stuff.

So, in the last 4 months of our Drawing class, I have learnt many new principles and ways to draw, as well as reviewed what I have known and forgotten or haven't been reminded of in a long time. I think, I did pretty well :) honestly, this class was hard, but still not that hard, I guess it's just because I was doing what I love and even when assignments took forever to get done, it didn't upset me, after all I have learnt so much in the process. I have never drawn with charcoal or conte before, and I have never drawn people, interiors, exteriors, and skeletons! So I must admit, I do feel kinda proud and excited that I was able to draw all of that, and it even didn't look that bad :)

I think, another thing I have learnt is to see things better, to notice little details, to pay attention to shapes and proportions and how things interact. This class has inspired me to start my own sketchbook and draw things that I notice that I think are interesting and beautiful..

I honestly think this was my favorite class this semester and I can't wait to get to Drawing 2 and Drawing Composition that I'll be taking in fall!!

I wish to everybody to have a great summer and keep drawing!!

and thanks Jason, I have learnt a lot from you.

Cross-hatching

I decided to document the progress of this work :)

stage 1. I started with a ruler

stage 2.

I free handed stage 3, I regret it a little bit, because at that point there were still some bigger areas that needed value. As I discovered ruler works better for bigger areas, unless you are able to draw really straight lines without it.

stage 4. I continued to darken shadows and small areas, at this point the ruler wasn't needed.
stage 5. I tried to avoid outlining objects as much as I could. However I had to do it in several places (with smaller objects) to strengthen my drawing. Now that I look at the picture of my final version, I'm thinking of coming back and refining it a little bit and maybe making dark areas darker.

I liked this assignment a lot, because it made me think and plan and analyze what I'm doing and where I'm going. I did some cross -hatching before as a kid, but never with ink and I didn't really give it as much thought as I did now!