Part 1: Exercise 1 - Draw, Draw, Draw Again

This exercise was a really interesting one, at first I was very hesitant as I don't usually enjoy drawing the same thing over and over and thought it would be really difficult. I started with a photo of our Dalmatian Skye in a lovely pose in our garden. I chose this photo as it contains whats very important to me and marries up with the themes I like to draw. Yet it was a challenging pose and contained perspective, which is something that I am still learning to do well.

The exercise was to draw the reference photo several times with variations each time.  The first drawing all the details the photo contained. I decided to use graphite pencil as that is one of my favourite mediums to draw with. I considered making this very detailed and precise but that isn't really my style and I wanted to play around with faster lines and suggestions of details.

Reference photo:

Drawing 1:

Drawing 2:

The second drawing was to be quicker and pick out important elements. This was my favourite out of the four. There was something about focusing in and being more expressive with my marks that really excited me. I think it made Skye stand out more and the flowers acted as more of a frame, which was nice.

Drawing 3:

The third drawing was to draw using my previous sketches as reference and my memory. This was much harder to do, I had to keep flipping back to look at my previous sketch and also sketching fast didn't make for a very good outcome. My perspective got worse and the likeness of Skye was lost also. However the expressive marks of the flowers really stood out and I like how the right side looks.

Drawing 4:

The final drawing was to be completely from memory. I again worked fast and found my perspective went right out the window but again I still liked my expressive marks and I was surprised that I could still sketch out the overall shape of Skye without losing it totally.

Reflection:

I actually ended up enjoying this exercise and I was surprised that they turned out a lot better than I expected. I knew my perspective would be bad as this is a weak area for me. However I was pleasantly surprised at how I could recall the placement of things fairly well. The expressive marks were something I loved the most. I really enjoyed making the marks and it felt very natural for me. I realised that perhaps this kind of drawing is a good fit for me as I use expressive marks in my abstract paintings and impressionist paintings, I don't know why I didn't think before that this could work in my drawings as well but I'm excited I have discovered this and look forward to trying this more.

This has turned out to be a valuable exercise both in showing my weaknesses but also helping me to connect more with my drawing style and expression.