Tonal study

First I tried a small drawing of a pepper mill and an onion. It was a bright, sunny day and getting enough shadows was difficult. The next attempt was a jug and a mug sitting below my kitchen window. It was lit from behind with a window at the side. This time there was more secondary light reflection. The problem was the items were handmade and the patterns and glazes made it more difficult to see the shadows.

Another go at oil pastel

I decided to have another go at oil pastels to see if I was being a bit hasty in my dislike of them. This time I used grey pastel paper and tried mixing them using blocks of colour. It went a little better and I could see that they were't all bad.

However, I then went back to my Sennilier pastels and did the same thing. I think the result said everything. The pastels had a quality and life to them that the oil pastels did not.

Boxes and books

I found that drawing to get the perspective correct meant having a very steady hand. Mine was not! Apart from the vertical lines wanting to in all directions, it took several attempts to get one line in the right place.
The ellipses were harder. Each circle seemed to veer to the top right. My hand did not adjust to what I saw. It took several lines to get anywhere near the correct shape and I realised how much I relied on the rubber to create the outline. Being more used to painting, I would normally blocks of colour to define the shapes rather than line.

The shopping items I will probably do again. I was quite confused as to how to use colour without tone as  I see tone as intrinsically tied up with decisions about complementary colours, etc.

 It seemed pointless as I did not have a plan as to whether to treat it as design, use only three colours, try to make it three dimensional by trying to mix colour, or just colour it in. 

Mark making

Holding a pencil is something I have not done for years. Most of my drawing has been done with a long handled paintbrush, or a knife, at an easel.
It felt very restrictive at first, drawing so small and after holding the pencil like a brush, I then held it like a pen and it still felt odd.
Charcoal felt more familiar as did pastel.
I found I could get far more variation from the charcoal and could see the potential for much more emotional work. It also had the best range of tone.
Ink could well have more use for experimenting. I found that dripping it from the pipette and then blowing it created some interesting movement.
Pencil seems to work really well for cross hatching, Dots or stippling seemed to me to be going against my nature. No movement and not much variation. For me, far too slow to create anything with any life to it.
Soft pastels ( difference in quality was noticeable) have great potential for mixing, smudging and using with ink. Putty rubber did not work. Only on charcoal or pencil.
The oil pastels were the biggest disappointment. Apart from the feel of them, they seemed inflexible. Most uncomfortable and felt like a fork on a window pane. Fine to convey frenzy but not pleasant to use.
On the whole a fascinating exercise which I would not have done if I were not given the instructions.
Charcoal and pastel by far the most enjoyable.

First make a mark....

The start of Drawing 1 course

So this is the beginning and so far Ihave spent a week battling with technology in order to get started. Getting the correct emails,blogs,OCA website up and running is proving challenging and the drawings, by comparison, straightforward. Next step is to get the images onto this site.

Two things need to be clarified.

One is that the order of presentation in this blog is not the order I did the drawings. There has been some editing because I was not happy with the layout and I am still trying to learn how to do it.

Secondly; my avatar, Sarah of Kippen, is a reference to Hildegarde of Bingen, 1098-1179, who was a German writer, composer, Christian mystic and Benedictine Abbess. She also invented an alphabet, was a healer and supervised miniature illuminations.