Part 5: Personal project – experimenting with materials

07 December, 2015. A few days ago I experimented with the brilliant white, smooth paper I am planning to use as my support for the animation to test a few mixes of materials:

1: Ink, charoal and white pastel

2: watercolour, charcoal and eraser

3: Oil pastel and pastel

4: Charcoal, white pastel and eraser

5: oil pastel, nail brush and white pastel

6: Oil pastel and watercolour

7: Watercolour, pastel and oil pastel

8: Watercolour, oil pastel, pastel and eraser

9: Oil pastel, watercolour and marker

10: Oil pastel, watercolour, marker and nailbrush

Doing this I noticed some effects, which I will keep im mind for my next experiments regarding the initial portrait:

1. Preparing the already smooth paper with an ink background makes alterations to a top layer of charcoal or pastel crayons very easy. Even the darker areas of charcoal could be erased without trace, if needed (example 1)
2. Preparing two layers of oil pastel on top of each other can be scratched with a nailbrush to produce some fascinating effects. Also, and important for my experiment: using a finger the top layer of oil pastel can be spread again to form a closed layer (example 5)
3. Drawing with oil pastels on a not quite dry underground of watercolour lifts the surface of the paper, producing interesting structures

 

Part 4, project 6, exercise 3: The face – portrait from memory or the imagination (stage 2: experimenting and finished drawing)

22 November, 2015. Initially I had only wanted to try out some mark making with my black oil pastels on very smooth brilliant white A2 sketch paper. Then I thought, oh well, I can put in something like a face to try waving the tension lines around it, then I added the computer screen to create a source of tension and then I ran wild :o). I produced the first layer with the black oil pastel stick, then added some finer and shiny lines on top of that with a 6B pencil, followed by some wide and some narrow areas of red ink intended to stand for a very serious source of tension about to strangle the man. These I moderated using a white marker and white oil pastel. I know that the last word has not been spoken in this matter and I am still incredibly angry at the portrayed person, so something went wrong with the experiment. I think that despite the strong marks the face does not convey a convincing feeling of being torn between different liabilities. Still I am happy to have drawn an imaginary face using nothing but wavy lines. Great care has to be taken when inventing a face from scratch, since it is easy to create parts which do not logically fit together, making the face look artificial. I can see some of that in my drawing and of course I have no idea whether there is a likeness to the real man in this portrait, but my subconscious may know better. If there is time, I will repeat the exercise in preparation for formal assessment.