1. I decided to draw a view of my garden when looking through my patio doors. This view fulfilled the requirement to include in the final piece, items drawn from nature as well as items such as buildings, fences etc and would enable me to demonstrate my understanding of how to create a sense of perspective and depth.
2. To prepare I did a rough charcoal sketch to get a feel of the main elements in the composition. I also took several photographs of the scene for a number of reasons:
(a) Although I would be drawing the view from life I wanted to capture the particular way the light fell on the garden at a particular time of day - around 9am. As the light would change quickly I did this to remind myself from the photo of the fundamental light and shade in the garden at that time and also the shadow under the patio table and chair in the foreground which I would add in at the very end of the work.
(b) I also used a print-off of the photo to establish the vanishing point in the scene - which I determined to be in the centre of page at a height in line with the top of the greenhouse at the back end of the garden. This vanishing point helped me create a believable depiction of the patio in the foreground and the angle of the rectangular garden as it moved into the distance. I also judged that the trees on either side of the garden also angled down to the same vanishing point. With all other lines such as the buildings and their roofs - I just judged the angles by eye against the vertical sides if the buildings and judging one angle against another.
3. I planned the composition in pencil. I established the main angles using the vanishing point, changed some detail within the composition by using a different patio table in the foreground. I moved a small statue I have to within view to add interest and help create better perspective. I decided to keep the trampoline in the picture and took a picture of my daughter on it to add interest, to make the composition more personal to me and to and give a sense of reality and life to the scene. The trampoline also helped to establish the middle ground. The houses in the distance way beyond the end of my garden and the trees behind the buildings give the far distance.
4. I used tonal differences in negative spaces around subjects such as the statue, to define such detail. Also I depicted the different tone of grass in the lower middle ground to that in the raised up grassy area at the end of the patio before you descend some steps – helping to give the impression of the true structure of the garden
5. Media: For many of the exercises in this part of the course I had ventured into largely new territory by using pen and ink and water soluble pencils. I have enjoyed experimenting and practising with this media but was ready for a change with my final piece. I did experiment with more water soluble pencils for this final piece, but finally decided to do something different and use pastel pencils. I felt these pencils would enable me to achieve the more impressionistic style I prefer but also allow me to put in detail as they were in pencil form.
My plan was to gradually build up the different tones from a relatively limited palette of colours. However once I had experimented a little and embarked on the drawing, I realised the downside of using pastels in pencil form was the time it would take me to build up the colour and tone in the picture. I spent much longer than the suggested time adding colour and working on tone that after a number of hours, once I had put in all the detail and built up the tone to a degree, I decided to broaden my palette of colours and also use pastel sticks so that I could work at a faster pace by getting bolder and greater coverage.
6. I was inspired in my research by the fact that all the artists I looked at, played around with their compositions – from emphasising particular features of interest, playing with perspective and light to draw the viewer to the main focus of the drawing, to adding in features to a composition which weren’t really there in reality. To the extreme of creating compositions that were largely fantasy or made up to tell a story as Claude did. I therefore arranged my composition by placing the chair and table, by moving the statue into view, by adding my daughter on the trampoline and also a blackbird that I regularly see in my garden. I also found it helpful to be encouraged to leave out certain things which I didn’t feel were helpful to include, though I only did that in a limited way by excluding the odd part of a roof or chimney in sight. I hadn’t known that the great artists of the past did make up elements of their compositions as they did, even composing their scenes from a stock of drawings they had done previously. It was also interesting that this way of creating work was often more highly regarded than drawing from reality. I think this way of thinking is liberating.
