I want to do an overview and self assess my work, this was suggested for us to do. I think this is a good way to see how I can improve and to see elements I did good on also, there are certain questions that they suggested we answer so I will just do my response below. I do think my work is improving throughout these exercises and I’m learning new things and taking more time throughout my pieces of art.
How did you simplify and select? Were you able to focus on simple shapes and patterns amid all the visual information available to you?
In both of these recent exercises I found it fairly easy to select the images I wanted to recreate through art. I like to pick certain things to focus on in my landscapes, the lamp post sketch I decided to further was so I had a good subjects to look at as well as having a colourful background to make the piece more interesting, I liked the look of this and I did try to show this in my last exercise also. I was able to focus to look at all the visible aspects of the scene, the patterns throughout the nature of the landscape I was able to recreate using different markings. Due to the recent circumstance of COVID-19 I wasn’t able to get close to the outdoors so I’ve had to take some of the pictures I had taken in the past and recreate those in my work. I was able to look at each subject in my work and recreate it using the shapes I saw as a rough outline for the work. I found this made it easier to sketch out the original outline to then go in and add lots of detail.
How did you create a sense of distance and form?
In these past two piece I wanted to create the sense of distance by creating a main subject to show a front ground, therefore the back ground looks further away creating the sense of depth and distance. I think this is an effective way of showing the distance, if the background of the picture lifts also it shows the sense of distance to it. I also reduced the size of the subjects in the background therefore it shows the distance as the trees etc are getting smaller in the back of the scene. I also used darker tones in the background to show the distance in the background, this shows the darkness and less light getting to it because it’s further from your eye.
Were you able to use light and shade successfully?
During both of these pieces I tried my best to use light, I found it more difficult to do this in my second piece due to not seeing the physical lighting against the trees and scenery. I did however manage to see the different tones throughout my pictures and try my best to add different shading throughout my work. I still am getting used to using different materials and how to represent them onto my art. I do think I am advancing well in using materials such as coloured pencils and watercolours yet I will continue to practice. In my pencil colouring I tried to show the different tones in the lamp post and used a rubber to get the lighter effects throughout the post. In my water colours I used white to get lighter tones on the bark as well as using larger amounts of water with the colour to create the reflection throughout the water. I do think I did do quite well but there is room for improvement as time.
I think to help me get to a large study would be to build up getting to that size, I think that focusing on smaller scale landscape is a good start; to use your view finder to focus on the part of the landscape and then slowly move your view finder away to create a larger scale landscape to work from and build it up to the full scene. I think this helps you build up the detail and see the lighting on each piece of the scene. Helping you build up a strong large scale piece of work.
All in all both of the past exercises have helped me advance in certain elements of mark making and using different materials, I also think I’m getting used to creating art with landscapes which I never normally opt for drawing, I’m not really someone that focus’ art on landscapes but I have enjoyed doing these exercises.
Sophie's OCA Art Work 