Different Projects From Drawing Class

These are different drawings I have done throughout the spring semester in my drawing class. All of the sketches below are from my newsprint pad where we focused on different techniques to get proportions right. We used techniques such as plumb lines and comparative measuring. Plumb lines are when you use your pencil or straight edge and hold it up to a part of the still life. Whatever the straight edge intersects, you now know it should intersect on your paper. Comparative measuring is when you use your straight edge again and hold it straight out to the still life. By closing one eye and finding a part you want to measure against everything else, you can find how everything is proportionate to the rest of the still life. You do this on your paper by keeping the same measurements in mind only you use the same original measuring place from the still life on your paper and do the same as you did in the still life to get the proportions right on your drawing.


Drawing Number 1


Drawing Number 2


Drawing Number 3
*In this drawing, we focused on "drawing through" where we drew what we could not see but knew was there by the information present in front of us.*


Drawing Number 4


Drawing Number 5
*In this drawing you can see the construction lines, plumb lines and measuring ticks.*


Drawing Number 6


This is the second part of the semester where we started focusing on value instead of just the contour and getting proportions right.

Drawing Number 1


Drawing Number 2
*This one has a value scale above it. This was to help us determine the darkest parts of the vase compared to the lightest parts. It also helped to determine how much pressure and how many times to go over the same spot to get the correct value.*


Drawing Number 3
*This drawing was done with pastels instead of the charcoal used in all the other drawings. It was used to create a metallic feel. The purpose of this exercise was to focus on the reflections in the metal. Notice the stripes and fruit playing around in the sides of the paint can and water can. I really enjoyed doing this exercise. The pastels were very forgiving in that you could easily cover the black up with the white as well as cover the white up with the black.

Also, the reason there is tape along the edges is so that the border stays white and the composition looks more professional. See the above pictures to see the result of the tape.*

Extra Credit: Sarah Dineen

For extra credit in our drawing class, we had to listen to an artist, Sarah Dineen, who visited WKUs campus. Her website is www.sarahdineen.com and you can view all her artwork, both recent and archive. You can also read about her work and her resume.

Originally, Sarah focused on realism but her Sophomore year of college, her professor told her to focus on abstraction and use her dreams as her inspiration. From there, she has developed her paintings into more creative abstractions.

Sarah works mostly in series, using the same inspiration for many paintings. The inspiration for most of her paintings are poems, stories, bodies, x rays, cat scans, etc. Most of these works are abstract and focus on both emotional and personal events. She calls it, "getting energy out." The series created through these emotions and experiments are Sexual Water, Loss, Love Sonnet, In Between, Unleashed, Gramercy Park, Search, Breaking Through, Surrender, Wreckage, and Hope Street. She also has paintings that are not part of any series. Some of these include Becoming, Torn, Dormant, and Levitation.

She uses different types of ground, or material she paints on, which include plywood and canvas. The media she uses include acrylic, plaster, and oil paints. In her paintings, she experiments with colors, paint drips, paint globs, and shapes.


Here is one of my favorite paintings of hers. She originally didn't like the painting so she painted over it in black. After she realized what she had done, she took a towel and wiped some of the paint off creating what is shown below. The title "Breaking Through #5" works well with the painting.

Breaking Through #5, acrylic on wood, 48" x 24"


In this painting, it is evident there is a figure and the painful expression it holds. For this painting, she had inspiration from the body and x-rays of ribs.

Breaking Through #3, acrylic on canvas, 72" x 32"

Master Work

Here is my first project in Drawing 140. The first thing we had to do was find a composition we were interested in and make a copy of it. Once you had the copy, you had to gesture the objects onto the paper. Next, you used tools such as plumb lines, transferring angles, comparative measuring, etc. to recreate the composition.

Here is the copy of my composition with all the markings on it from comparative measuring and transferring angles.

Here is my gesture of the composition.


This photo was taken about an hour later. As you can see, I began to really establish what is where. I found myself having trouble with the placement and making too dark of a line.


Here is the final composition with the resource next to it. I am not very happy with it. It was very hard to match the glass to the proper size and proportion throughout the composition. As you can see, I still had trouble with the line weight. I found this project as good practice though to reinforce all the tools we had learned in class.

Gesture Drawing

(F-1)
This is my closet in my dorm room, drawn from my bed. I found that making a light mark with 6B charcoal is hard when sketching. It is a lot easier when using the newspaper pad in class. Looking back, I see this as more of a contour drawing that is a little sketchy. Gesture drawings should be more fluid than this.


(F-2)
This is the "Kissing Bridge" by Cherry Hall on WKU's campus. I found it difficult to get the spacing right between the posts. This is another example of a sketchy contour drawing instead of the intended gesture drawing which should be more fluid and loose like some of the drawings below.


(F-3)
This is Van Meter drawn from the road on WKU's campus. Again, I found the spacing to be difficult between the posts. This is closer to a gesture but could still use some work. For pictures 1 through 3, I did not use any of the tools learned in class.


(F-4)
This is drawn at my grandma's house from inside looking in the yard. It is the framework to hold the swing with two kids playing with the leaves in front of it. This drawing is a gesture because of the fluidity the line creates. I have captured where everything in the composition approximately is.


(F-5)
This is drawn from my bed looking at the food storage crates in my dorm room. Here I used gesture drawing to place everything and then used tools to transfer angles, find the approximate measurements by using comparative measuring, etc.


(F-6)
This is a gesture drawing of my roommate Susan. We were waiting for Taiji class to start so I drew her laying to the floor. I used basic shapes to capture her. I also used the tool to transfer angles to make sure her head and right foot were in the correct place. The same goes for her head and left foot, etc.