In line with my discussion at my recorded Tutorial I have bought a A2 portfolio that will house my on-going sketched throughout this year. As I work slow, this will be useful in allowing me to produce continual work within one place (removed from a sketchbook or closed booklet). It will also encourage me to keep on making work, in order to build up a substantial number of drawings.
These drawings will be a mix of primary photographs, taken both in the studio as well as on the street, as well as appropriated images that I encored within the year. This will then also allow me to add/or will contribute to a similar online catalogue of images I have created.
In this way, I will be able to analyse and dissect a much larger number of photos throughout the year, even if they are not directly related to my studio practise.
Although the portfolio is A2 sized, I will work on and with a number of different sizes and styles of paper to really add variety to my drawings.
My way of working will be similar to the styles of work that I encountered on my trip to France to visit the Musée d’Orsay & Centre Georges Pompidou where I encountered highly detailed work, only partly complete. These incomplete drawing really reinforced my thinking regarding my usual working style and I feel that done in the right measure, the work can be as powerful as a fully completed, highly detailed drawing.
The basis for these drawings will largely be based on the primary imagery within my work, as well as some appropriated images that I encounter throughout the year. This portfolio I feel will be useful to my practise as it will allow me to just keep drawing, removed from the pressure of the image having to represent a finished outcome with a strong concept and belief behind its creation. In addition, it will also promote me to work faster and harder, allowing me to continually be looking for imagery in everyday life.
In the end I just want a large collection of drawing of people encountered in my every day life, appropriations and primary images that really work as a whole to form a comprehensive portrait of the visual imagery that informs my everyday life.
Above are two images I have selected to use as a basis for my ongoing drawing series. As with most of my drawings I prefer high contrast images, highly detailed, passport-esque photos. My thinking behind these images were to convey as sense of emption (largely indicating to the personality of the sitter) which I will attempt to draw in both colour and black and white.
More than anything I do not want these images to be neat, perfect finished examinations of the original photos, instead what I want is a kind of experimental assessment of the images, that will form the series that I will add to throughout the year.
I have edited this photos nominally, mostly adjusting the hue, and brightness, allowing me to draw the image after this point. What I enjoy about these images is the sense of drama that surround them. I want the images to appear visibly interesting, as well as being an investigation of the sitter in their entirety. As I move on from this sitter, I will hope to photograph others in the same style, as I carry on the investigation of the sitter through photography.
I will draw these images as a floating element within the A3 folder in a number of styles. This will form the first drawing of the year and I feel that this is a good gateway into going into full flow for the rest of the year.
Digital Print Studio: 22.10.15
I also have decided to print one of the (above) photos as a large print format photography (A2-A3) in the universities Digital Print Studio. I feel that there are many strengths of these images removed from their preliminary aim to draw them. I feel that these images (as photographs) could be a part of my ongoing-online portfolio as well as represent an important talking point within my practise.
On visiting the print studio, I now know it would cost only £1 to print A3 and I feel that after I have finished rendering my own interpretation of the images as a drawing that I will dentately go ahead and print the image to work as a standalone piece.
Drawing:
I decide to redo my drawing, working on a smaller scale. When it comes to my practise, I go by my gut, and I did not feel that the size was suitable for what I wanted to achieve. In this way, I not only made the image smaller, but I am approaching in a completely different frame of mind. In this image I want much more then pictorial detail. I want to uncover the feeling, the essence of the sitter, to reveal the internal politics of the character through their face.
I am not putting a time-limit on the drawing. Too many time before I have been in a hurry to complete and move on to another drawing, but this time I want there to be a thorough investigation of the photograph (on a secondary level) through my drawing, in the same way there is a investigation of the sitter through photography.