Part 4 Project 1 Ex 1 Fabric

For my first drawing work in Part 4 I have to draw fabric.  This filled me with some trepidation as whenever I've tried to draw it before I've struggled.  My instructions say I should make two 15 minute sketches one using line and the other one using tone.

Whether it was my mindset I don't know but I wrestled with this for the best part of a day getting more and more frustrated.  

I think at first I made life too difficult for myself by throwing a towel onto the table.

My first attempts were not what I wanted.  This is the best of a bad bunch.

My white, fluffy towel looking more like a lump of clay

I decided to rearrange my towel and put it over the back of a chair.

Line drawing of my towel on a chair

My line drawing continued to look lifeless.

Tonal drawing of my towel on a chair

But my tonal one was a little better.  At least it looked like fabric.  I thought perhaps I should try another medium - perhaps I was getting hung up on pencil.  I tried my pastels.  I scanned it in both greyscale and colour.  

Pastel drawing of my towel on a chair scanned in greyscale

Pastel drawing of my towel on a chair scanned in colour

I wasn't particularly happy with this but when I propped it up and stood back I got a pleasant surprise. It was by far my best attempt of the day.  It has to be something to do with the soft pastels.

My next task is to identify "tricky" parts of my fabric and do a number of detailed sketches. Stupidly I returned to my graphite pencils and so to a solid looking towel.

I'm ashamed to say that at this point I snatched the towel from the chair.  I'm really starting to beat myself up over this exercise so I think I'm going to move on and keep it in the back of my mind.

I'm supposed to reflect on my experience of drawing folds but I think it's pretty clear what I found hard.  And probably why.