Artistic Explorations: Creative Sketchbook (3)

Recently I joined an online group where people who like to draw share their sketches and drawings following two-weekly prompts posted by the administrator of the group. One of the briefs was to draw rocks. Instantly I thought about the standing stones of Callanish on Isle of Lewis we visited last year.

I selected these black and white photographs for my sketches. It really helped that they were monochrome so that I could focus my attention on the shapes, lines and tones.

Callanish stones ©Fenfolio2015

Callanish stones ©Fenfolio2015

Callanish stones ©Fenfolio2015

 The first drawing is a blind contour drawing in black fineliner pen. By only looking at the subject and not on your paper and by keeping the pen on the paper, you feel a bit out of your comfort zone at first but very quickly I felt less restricted somehow. It really is liberating! I like the expressive style you get with this kind of exercise.

Blind contour sketch ©Fenfolio2015

For my second drawing I used the same fineliner pen and focussed on the various tones. But now I used my non-dominant hand (which is my left) to free up the mind! By scribbling light and heavier I was able to create interesting marks and depth.

Pen drawing with non-dominant hand ©Fenfolio2015

The third sketch was again focussed on tones, but this time I used watersolubale graphite pencils (Karismacolor).

Sketch in Karismacolor pencils ©Fenfolio2015

For my fourth sketch I used pastel pencils and a very fine fineliner for the cracks in the rocks on grey coloured paper. I really like the way pastel has given the drawing a more softer, even mysterious feel.

Sketch in pastel pencils ©Fenfolio2015

 Then I wanted to create a drawing with more sharpness and with a more graphic style. I used Derwent Graphik Liner Painter pens on dark grey coloured paper for my fifth drawing.

Drawing in Graphik Liner pens ©Fenfolio2015

 Finally, I wanted to use collage and colour to compare it with my monochrome drawings. For this one I used tissue paper, watercolour paint and inktense pencils on watercolour paper.

Callanish stones drawing in mixed media
©Fenfolio2015

After all these exercises I realised I prefer drawing on darker coloured paper and in monochrome. It's something I will keep in mind for the other prompts!

Artistic Explorations: Drawing sculptures

On average I see my parents, who still live in the place where I was brought up in The Netherlands, about three times a year. But once a year I spend another couple of days with each of them individually, either in Holland or in Scotland. It's really great to be able to spend quality time with them like that. Recently I visited my dad who has the same interest in sports and art as me. I brought my sketching materials so that we could draw together somewhere. He suggested to go to Beelden Aan Zee Museum in Scheveningen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beelden_aan_Zee and http://www.beeldenaanzee.nl/ ). I had never been there before even though it was a stone's throw away from the office where I used work.

I was happily surprised to see that they recently renovated the promenade. A part of it was now only accessible for cyclists which gave it a very spacious, tranquil and clean atmosphere. From the promenade, in front of beach bistro De Waterreus, we could see lots of surfers and kitesurfers in action or arriving by bike (with their gear on the back and board in one hand). Walking further along to the Museum we were first welcomed by a fishermen's monument called  "De Scheveningse Vrouw" (= Woman of Scheveningen) created by Gerard Bakker and offcially installed in 1982.

"De Scheveningse vrouw" by Gerard Bakker
©Fenfolio2014

Then further along we saw the quirky Fairytale sculptures by American sculptor Tom Otterness (1952). 

Fairytale sculptures with "Herring eater" in background
by Tom Otterness ©Fenfolio2014

Me and fairytale figure ©G.Wolters 2014

Fairytale sculptures by Tom Otterness
©Fenfolio2014

In front of Beelden aan Zee Museum there was a beautiful sculpture of a face. The combination of the bright blue sky, the soft autumn light and the dune grass waving in the wind in front of it shaped the sculpture in the landscape beautifully!

"Light of the Moon" by Igor Mitoraj ©Fenfolio2014

The interior of the museum is very light and spacious and the first exhibition we saw was from the French sculptor and illustrator Henri Laurens (February 18, 1885 – May 5, 1954). Initially I was not very inspired by his work displayed here but when I saw a few smaller works my eye was drawn to one figure; "L'Aurore".

"L'Aurore" by Henri Laurens ©Fenfolio2014

My dad and I installed ourselves here and started drawing in our sketchbook. It was a really good exercise to try to get the tones right in order to have a realistic representation of the sculpture. I used a black charcoal pencil on A5 paper.

Sketch "L'Aurore" ©Fenfolio2014

Although it took quite some time to finish it (my dad produced three sketches in the same time!) I really enjoyed the process. I was so in the flow that I didn't notice a group of people were looking over my shoulder from the patio outside. When I realised I was being watched while drawing, I first got a bit of a shock but when they all smiled and one of them even gave me a big thumbs up, it felt really nice to have an audience!

After all this hard work it was time for a lunchbreak. You haven't experienced Scheveningen completely if you haven't eaten fresh fish at Henk Kraan!

Me eating fresh fish at Henk Kraan
©G.Wolters 2014

The second part of the day we chose to draw the almost real looking figures of French sculptor Daniel Firman (1966). For "Duo" he made a mould of a dancer's body, then that of another, juxtaposed with the first. After this first duo, he placed a third dancer beside the mould of the second, continuing in a similar way on the principle of the "exquisite corpse" until he had six duos. It resembles a set of photographs. Firman asks: "Can a sculpture be an image? Can an image be a sculpture?" 

"Duo" by Danile Firman, ©Fenfolio2014

"Duo" by Danile Firman, © Gallery Perrotin

"Duo" by Danile Firman, ©Fenfolio2014

I chose to draw the lying woman because of the nice tones and curves. This sketch was done in mainly white conté on A5 black paper. I really enjoyed the process of focussing on the light, dark and midtones of the dark grey sculpture and bringing out the body from the black paper.

Sketch in white and black conté on A5 black paper ©Fenfolio2014

The next day the weather was too beautiful to stay inside and we continued our drawing in my parents' garden. They have quite a few sculptures, but there is one in particular I have always admired: "Brain Drain" by Gladman Zinyeka from Zimbabwe.

"BrainDrain" by Gladman Zinyeka  ©Fenfolio2014

For the first time I used Canson Mi-Teintes paper which I bought recently. It comes in beautiful natural colours and the paper has a rough sandpapery texture. For this A3 drawing I used Cretacolour Chunky Charcoal and Graphite and sealed it with a few layers of SpectraFix. I think the stone of the sculpture comes out really well on this type of textured paper!

Drawing in charcoal and graphite on A3 Mi-Teintes paper
©Fenfolio2014

We finished off with a still life of a few zinc garden buckets we set up in the garden. This time I wanted to experiment with my new Derwent Graphic Line Painter. These are fine nibbed pens and contain waterbased pigment so you can make washes with it too. It took me a while to get familiar with them and some colours were better washing down than others for some reason, but after a while a started to feel more confident with this medium. 

Sketching "en plein air" ©Fenfolio2014

Still life of zinc garden buckets ©Fenfolio2014

Sketch with Derwent Graphic Line Painter pens and waterbrush
©Fenfolio2014

My wonderful mini holiday in Holland was over before I knew it. Time flies when you're having fun is what they say and it's absolutely true. I already look forward to our next drawing/painting/photography session together!

Artistic Explorations: Self Portrait (1)

For my next project at Life Drawing class we were going to do a self portrait, one of my least favourite subjects! It would be my second attempt in two years. Again, I wanted to create an interesting surface first (perhaps to redirect the attention to that instead of my actual portrait?). Coincidentally at the same time I had asked my father and aunt whether they had any vintage articles from magazines and newspapers. They are both very interested in history in general so I thought they might have something for me.

Well, I was happily surprised that my dad had just gone through a pile of old newspaper cuttings, officially typed documents and magazine articles they found after his mother passed away. They were all about my great-grandfather who retired as director of the Post Office in The Hague, The Netherlands in 1941.
He had selected the ones he wanted to keep but there was many more left and I could have these!

I had so much joy reading these articles and selecting cuttings for my collage. I was especially moved by his personal speech looking back at his career as a director. Before I started to cut and tear I took photos of the text of course and this collage is what I created.

Paper collage on grey board

Close-up collage

Close-up collage

Then I added gesso and sketched my portrait in pencil first. The final drawing includes brown indian ink, pen, Cretacolour Chunky Charcoal and Golden liquid acrylics. It doesn't look like me at all and some proportions are not correct but somehow the drawing is intriguing. I hadn't planned it but the way the words " De Wachter" (which is the title of a newspaper and means Watchman) are placed on my forehead and my left eye reflecting a picture of my great grandfather is quite symbolic!

Self portrait on collaged paper

Self portrait close-up

Self portrait close-up

Self portrait close-up

Artistic Explorations: Figurative study (1)

In October last year I signed up for my first ever figure drawing class at Grays School of Art in Aberdeen. Drawing human bodies was something I was never really interested in but I thought it would be good to develop my skills in this area. The first few weeks I was really struggling and not enjoying it all. I found it hard to get things in proportion (which is the most important part) and although I learned to use my pencil to measure every part of the body and translate that to my paper, I felt so constrained when I was doing that!

When my dad came to visit me for a couple of days to do a mixed media painting workshop with me in my new studio, I had a good chat with him about my progress in life drawing. He is a very skilled artist himself and I think his paintings and drawings of people are his best. Here are a few of his drawings which have been published in his book "G-Kunst" I received a few years ago. A wonderful source of inspiration.

Figure drawing sketches by Gerrit Wolters

Figure drawing sketches by Gerrit Wolters

Figure drawing sketches by Gerrit Wolters

Figure drawing sketches by Gerrit Wolters

He encouraged me not to focus too much on the details and try to capture the essence of the posture. Quick sketches are ideal exercises for that. The last few weeks I've had lots of practice with quick sketches and I feel I'm more in the flow. Actually, I think I'm starting to enjoy figure drawing! Instead of seeing the whole person I'm now observing various shapes and tones of the different parts of the body. I'm able to draw more freely and more in an abstract way. For the first time I'm quite pleased with the results. The teacher gave me positive feedback on my portfolio and she encouraged me to do more in pen and/or Indian ink and collage (more of that in my next post).

2 min sketches in coloured charcoal (Cretacolour Art Chunky) and pencil

2 min sketches in Indian ink

2 min sketches in Indian ink

2 min sketches in Indian ink

5 min sketch done with left (!) hand to really challenge myself

Artistic explorations: Swirls (1)

A few months ago I was playing with my new airbrush and watching how air would move ink on paper. Although I had already collected many digital images of vector art, I didn't have an end result in my mind. Shapes just developed (see examples here). Below are a few free stock images I downloaded to form my idea:

stock image 1

stock image 2

After my attempt with the airbrush, I tried to create swirls with traditional mediums like pen, crayons and ink.

For this one below I first created the background with Caran D'Ache crayons NeoColor II (watersoluble) and then painted a design in black ink on top.

Swirl Mixed Media ©Fenfolio2011

These are some other free stock images but then in black and white:

Stock image 3

Stock image 4

Stock image 5

I then drew some swirly doodles with pen on sketching paper and had lots of fun!

Swirl Doodle 1 ©Fenfolio2011

Swirl Doodle 2 ©Fenfolio2011

Swirl Doodle 3 ©Fenfolio2011