Part 2 Project 2 Ex 1a

This exercise is about ways of making surface texture and so I need to think about my drawing surface and mark making.

With the last exercise in mind I decided to do a rubbing of the large stone that defeated me.  I have learnt that rubbing is also called frottage.   I used tissue paper because I could mould it a little to the shape of the stone and I gently taped it over the top.

Stone frottage

It's interesting close up as well

This provided a really good texture and if used as a collage piece it may well have solved my previous problem.  I decided to try it out.

Frottage used as a collage piece on my earlier drawing

I played with the image a bit using Paint.net.

...add some colour

Dents effect - looks like rough water

Tile effect reminds me of aerial photography

I love playing like this because you never know what's going to happen.  The patterns created here can be picked up for all manner of things.

Now back to gathering things for my textural drawings.  First I used a teddy bear.  The foot offered two sorts of fur; a short one and a longer more straggly one.  I think this is quite successful.

Lots of straight marks for the short fur
and longer softer marks going up the leg

I chose to try some boucle yarn that I had wound onto card.  I used pencil again.

I also tried to print with the yarn and while some of it was a mess I rather liked this:

I've had a burr from a wild rose pinned on my board for ages and it offers the opportunity to draw soft but spiky marks:

Next I turned my attention to the more mundane and tried to capture the texture of my washing up cloth.

The spongy cloth is full of depressions and I drew them by using lots of circles with shading to depict depth. The lower image is of the sponge dipped lightly into paint and even more lightly printed.

I thought I'd like to try something soft so I got a towel thinking it would be difficult.  I selected soft pastel because of it's texture and pulled it over the paper.  Low and behold I had something that looked like my towel.  I outlined in conte crayon but heaven knows why because it's entirely superfluous.

A pink towel

We have a sparrowhawk around our garden and there's lots of feathers distributed after it's had a meal.  I tried to make a tapering line for the central shaft and had four goes until I was happy.   I used my dip pen and placed light strokes along the shaft then I stroked the ink with a wet rigger to create some silkiness.  I'm pleased with this.

I wanted to attempt something with a rough surface so I chose my garlic pot.  It's a very rustic piece of pottery.  My first attempt was altogether too pale.  I did a colour wash (wet on wet) then just stippled with a darker colour (top).  I felt this was too pale so I wet the end of a water soluble crayon and dropped it onto the image.  This was too harsh.

Colour wash and pencil crayon

I'm much happier with this next one.  Once again I started with a wash then used the edge of a small piece of corrugated card to make a rough texture.  The background could do with being a bit darker but otherwise it looks like my pot.

I've been putting it off because I know I'll struggle but I can delay no longer.  I'm going to try to do a glass. The one I've selected has a heavy base and that makes a real difference to how the reflections work.

Not my finest hour

I decided to look to see how it should be done and found this and I just wouldn't know where to start even though I've watched it more than once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpbW3Aq0PB0

I have several slate tiled floors in my house and they offer a wealth of textures for frottage.  Once again I used tissue paper but this time my medium was wax crayon.

Slate tile, tissue and wax crayon

The floor and the crayon were both hard and the tissue needed a lot of care to stop it tearing.  However, it gave a much better result than using copy paper.  This reminds me of the ripples left in the sand by an outgoing tide.