Monday 28 July 2014

Assignment 5: Face as an Object

I asked Luigi to use the Macro lens to take close up shots of individual features of my face. I really like some of these images and he has made some great compositions here. I especially like the ones in which I am screwing up my eyes against the bright sunlight. Please see the introduction to assignment five for an explanation of the thinking behind this.







I made some drawings on A4 black card in coloured pencil based on the photographs of me squinting into the sunlight. The coloured pencil on the dark ground was really quite effective and gave the impression of drawing with light. I was quite pleased with these studies and enjoyed making them.



I particularly likes the image of the disembodied face below. I thonk there is some ambiguity about it. It is unclear whether I'm squinting in the sunlight, smiling or grimacing in pain. There is also something of the quality of a death mask about it - I saw these macabre items on a trip to the National Portrait gallery. They were used to make portraits of people after their death.


I decided to make a larger drawing of this (between A2 and A1) on a sheet of sandpaper. Unfortunately I didn't have any dark coloured paper that was large enough so I started on a sandy coloured ground and filled in the background with a thick layer of black oil bar. The result wasn't as satisfying as the drawing on the black ground. 

During the process of making this drawing I realised that I was just going through the motions herein reiterating the smaller drawing on a larger scale. I was very relaxed about making this drawing because it was falling back on old abilities and not really challenging myself. All I was doing was copying a photograph - there wasn't anything very creative in the process of drawing here. The result might be a nice picture but I wouldn't really have pushed myself forward. I was rapidly running out of time to complete the assignment so I decided to abandon this uncompleted drawing and move on


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