Exercise : A drawing with textures

Following one from experimenting with drawing textures  I have done a still life drawing of different natural object with different textural qualities. Object here in include some pebbles, slate rock a snail's shell a weathered stick and a dead robin (found the previous day in the back garden).

Here I have mainly used charcoal, but have also used a fine pen,  a bamboo dip pen, pencil, a coloured pencil and a grey felt tip.

Exercise : Experimenting with texture

Here I have taken a selection of objects and thought about how I can best reflect the texture when drawing each object. In all these drawing I have use a combination of charcoal and pencil.


Studies 1:

Studies 2:

My favourite, the wine gum:

My frottage examples


Wood panel:

House brick and joint:

Exercise : Observing negative space and perspective

In this exercise had to draw a continuous line around the mass of all objects rather than treating each of object individually. Found the exercise harder than expected, yes conscious of the space the object occupied and the negative spaces surrounding the objects...but naturally I see each object in it's own right and am happier to draw them a such.

In both finished drawings I have added detail with coloured felt tip as I didn't want to reduce the sense of what the exercise was about.

Drawing 1.

Drawing 2.

Exercise : Composition of natural objects

Here I am exploring different compositions based on a arrangement of several natural objects (bananas, apples and flowering cactus)


Thumb nail sketches:

Detail from one of the sketches:

Temptation to do a study of arrangement in paints too strong...

Exercise : Still life sketches of man made objects

Here I am exploring different compositions based on a arrangement of several man made objects ( plastic basket of kitchen utensils, bottle and salt cellar)


Thumb nail sketches:

Detail from one of the sketches:

Here I have one of the objects going of the edge of the paper, like the sense that the scene goes on beyond what we can see and also feel it detracts from the feeling that the objects have been purposely arranged.