23/9/20

1. The drawing from which subsequent 2D and 3D drawings came.
2. 3D drawing from banana skin sketch (1.) – folded an envelope into something pyramidal, like the form of the previous sketch but more rigid, flatter, continuous surfaces, starker contrasts, straighter lines – it’s interesting from a number of angles and so might follow a number of strands from it. Folds give paper strength.
3. Charcoal – I like the two-tone contrasts, which successfully indicate direction the light is coming from and angles at which the folds protrude and recede – for next drawing try to avoid line and work with areas of tone/shadow.
4. Alternative angle of same 3D drawing as 2. Thought the shapes and direction of the sharp angle was interesting.
5. Charcoal/rubber – placement of composition on the page is something to consider – I think there may be too much space to the right but quite like how all the shapes point to one corner – the space to the right maybe indicates right to left movement of the shapes – I introduced a horizontal shadow at the bottom of the page (should have taken a photo at this stage) which flattened the composition – wanting to undo this I used a rubber to erase the line and found that it produced a more effective shadow and reintroduced a sense of space, while at the same time not entirely corresponding with the shapes above – it looks like the black shapes are floating or crashing down – a surreal element to it.

BLU TACK DRAWINGS (document 2D drawings) – these did not come from week one’s drawings

1. Blu tack on white envelope – began simple – white envelope instead of table because I wanted a more defined outline and shadow – it was end of the day so shadow was nice and long – thought it would be interesting to draw something smaller – thought the malleability of the material worked particularly well for producing a variety of quick, small 3D drawings.
2. Fine liner, 9B, both hands, 1 minute – focused on the shadow, a vague outline of the blu tack ball – I like the contrast of hard, definite line of the long shadow and the softer, thin, scribbly, diffused toning of the blu tack ball
3. Blu tack on white envelope – I like the angle, the prolonged shadow and that it supports itself – the weight and adhesive quality of the material is evidenced by the angle it supports itself at – it’s an interesting photo in itself.
4. Marker, rubber, 1 min. – I emphasised the elongated shadow and included line of the envelope seal – I wanted to combine marker and rubber because they seem incompatible, but they work together so long as the ink is still wet – the effect is either watercolour-like or ripping up of the paper if rubbed hard enough, giving interesting texture – I think I should try rubber and marker combo more extensively.
5. Blu tack – A flattened and stretched out 3D drawing – an organic, curvilinear form, the hole stretched points to the elasticity of the tack and creation of space.
6. Left hand graphite stick, 3 mins – tried picking out curved lines, tone, pressed texture and negative space – I think I should have explored negative separately to line – the lines ended up defining the form and areas of negative space felt redundantly added – next time start with negative space before line.
7. Blu tack –

Toilet Paper/Collage/Zine Developments

Have the notes but need to take better photos before it gets too dark

Made sound recordings of texture sheets

Erasure/Concealment Experiments

The concept for this came from watching the Rauschenberg video from Jenny’s presentation and previous developments using rubber. I began with a development from week 1 that I thought might leave a strong outline after having rubbed it out – maybe I should have gone for something with charcoal instead, something a bit harder to rub out that pencil and graphite. What was most interesting from this experiment was finding that after rubbing charcoal all over the page I could see the faint impressions of the pencil lines I had attempted to rub out – like a forensic/archaeological process. The rubber can’t rub out the physical marks made into the paper by the pencil. Drawing as carving into paper not just drawing onto.

The dust and rubbings to come from charcoal and rubber could be interesting materials, have some kind of memory/evidence of drawing in them – something sculptural about the used rubber. A negative sculpture of the drawing? Made a few sketches and took photos as I cleared the charcoal away with edge of ruler – this ended up producing some interesting compositions – could easily make this a developmental drawing task.

Had an idea to add layer of charcoal and rub it away in repetition but was time-consuming and don’t think it would have produced very different results. The one go of it I did try I did like the ghostly abstract forms to come out of the rubbed away charcoal – noticeable the difference in texture between applied charcoal and rubbed away – one is smooth, almost wet and drawn out, the other is dry, diffused and scratchy.

While I was rubbing the charcoal sheet out I wanted to take advantage of the heavy movements made onto the paper and against the desk so I got a piece of paper, placed it over the rubbed out rubber and charcoal dust and filled a glass of water to place on top. A kind of automatic drawing, an artwork as consequence of the movement of rubbing out. Nothing really reacted with one another or stuck to the page when lifted but when I used kitchen roll to absorb the water I liked the translucent effect – the water made the kitchen roll almost see-through. Following the idea of concealment/erasure I continued to add layers of kitchen roll over the top until the black blob became whitened out. I then did the same with A4 sheets of paper over the top of the automatic drawing which took far fewer to obscure the black – suppose the ability to conceal was about absorbency or lack of it – the more the material absorbed water the more transparent it was.