Graphics - Day 1

We did four experimental portrait drawings. The first exercise involves drawing with our eyes closed. I tried to memorize the person's recognizable features, like her fringe. I realized at first I may be remembering how she looks, but by the end I'm just thinking to myself if I had drawn the main facial features like the nose, eyebrows, ears etc... For this exercise I chose a charcoal stick as my drawing material, because it is very easy to create marks on paper.

The second exercise was to draw using my alternative hand, which is my left hand. I didn’t really like my drawing. I thought I was trying very hard to control my hand and being very careful with how I mark made on the paper. This might explain why the drawing looks so vague, because I was afraid of  putting pressure on my hand. I felt slightly conscious because we were allowed to look at the person, so you should expect the drawing to be good, despite using the alternative hand. 

Next, we weren’t allowed to use our hands, so we had to draw with a pen in my mouth. I used a pink highlighter. I hold the paper in front of me, so it was easier for me to draw. It was really hard and tiring to be constantly moving my head. I realized I started moving the paper instead of my head. Finally, the last task was the same as what we did on the first task but it was a continuous drawing. I used a pen for this task, and I thought the drawing looked very interesting with all the repeated lines. 

Overall, the exercises were all very fun and relaxing. I don’t feel pressurized for having to draw the exact representation. There is no wrong in these exercises we do, which is what I like about experimental drawings. It was interesting to see everybody’s work altogether, realizing how different every person is and with the way they draw under different circumstances.  

Next task was to draw someone's ear. I never tried drawing just an ear on itself. Whenever I’m drawing ears it is something I find very hard and tend to avoid. This was really the first time I observe closely to someone’s ear to draw. I initially thought it was going to be a difficult for me, as I’m not good at drawing realistically. Also, it made me nervous that I had to draw a enlarge version on an A1 size paper. However, as I started I just got into the drawing. I used charcoal again as I find it is a great tool for large and sweeping strokes. Also, it can be easily smear and good for shading such as hatching. 

 

We all gather our works together and it shows the diversity in our style of working and also everyone’s ear. I figure through this task that ear itself is unique as everyone’s ear is not the same, and some with earrings make them even more exclusive compare to the others. 

We had to make a collage, creating a new face using our cut outs of celebrity heads. I basically played around with the pictures by constantly ripping them and assembling them together, till I’m happy with it. I thought my collage look slightly realistic like there is such person, as of other collages that I’ve seen where it is obvious the different parts that made up the work.

However, I thought I was being very careful with putting the different parts together, so I think next time I should try being more playful and just have fun with what I’m doing. 

We had to create our own viewfinder, and find in our collage an interesting part that we have to blow up. I decide to blow up between the nose and mouth, because it was the part that I find intriguing. I used a pencil for this task. Next time I should be more prepared with my equipments, so I don’t have to always use the same materials. I find most of my drawings don’t have much colour in them, mainly consists of black and grey.