Had lots of fun in our drawing class again this week. With the pressure and concentration of the impending doom that is Crit day on Friday, it felt really nice and relaxing to work big and free. Really made me feel better and more chilled out! Phil set up an installation with balloons, trestles and crepe ribbons and, as the class was quite small, we were left to our own devices a bit more today. I wanted to experiment with colour and Vicky had prepared some textile dyes for us to use in our work. Along with the dyes, I also used charcoal, chalk, pastels and masking tape.
First drawing of the day. I started off by mapping out the larger, more dominant lines on the paper and then added the balloon shapes afterwards. I like the contrast between the straight lines of the ribbons and curves of the balloons. Just added a touch of colour with pastels to this charcoal and chalk sketch.
This again began with bold, straight lines with the flow and movement of the balloons. I went with the shapes and the colour added a sense of fun and freedom to this picture. I received some great feedback from my classmates who also noticed the suggestion of flags or kites in the drawing, with the hint of maybe a celebration or carnival. Quite an illustrative one apparently!
I wanted to experiment more with the textile dyes in this one and decided to use masking tape to define the straight lines in a different way. I worked over in pastels at different stages of removing the tape once the dye had mostly dried. However some of the patches where the dye was still damp added to the effect of the pastels and gave a much stronger look. Once I'd removed all the masking tape I worked over the piece again, sometimes with pastel, sometimes with more dye. The most effective results came from working dye on top of the pastel on the paper. Really pleased with this one and I might carry on and develop it even further.
I couldn't really have colourful balloons in front of me and not try out this version - coloured pastels and chalk on black paper. Didn't quite achieve the result I was hoping for, mainly because of the smudging but it was fun to give it a go. This was just a quick sketch while I was waiting for the dye to dry in the painting above.
Last but not least, here are some photos from the installation. Vicky said that photos can be part of our sketchbook/portfolio too and I'd like to use some of these to work on again in the future. Who'd have thought there was so much more to modelling balloons than making giraffes and flowers!
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