Section 3: LANDSCAPES: Exercise 3. 360 Studies

When I came to Guangzhou I thought that I had landed up on the outskirts of the city and that the hills covered with greenery in the distance were the border to the countryside. So in an effort to see far and be in nature I got on my bike and cycled and cycled only to discover that over the hills were only more 100's of kilometers of concrete jungle. It was scary and horrid and I never did it again, being quite happy to pretend that beautiful lush landscape exists on the other side. I guess if you live in a city of over 1 million people the outskirts are pretty far away.

For this exercise I had to choose 2 different venues - due to the fact that I really do live in a concrete jungle! The 2 elevated points are completely covered in greenery on 2 sides, so I had to do 2 sketches from one vantage point and 2 from the other... it was hot, humid and muggy and I barely managed to get home before the deluge. I have never seen rain like this - not even in Africa. The sky goes dark and green and then it just pours down!

All the sketches are in teal coloured ink and drawn with a fountain pen. I enjoyed sketching with this medium, it was conducive to rapid and scribbly lines.

The large building on the hill I romantically thought of as an old monastery.. haha it was actually built by a fraudster who is now serving time in a Chinese prison...

On reflection I realised that the time constraint of 15mins made me focus on the important features in the landscape and draw only those elements that would reflect what i was experiencing about the place.

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Section 2: DETAILED OBSERVATIONS OF NATURAL OBJECTS: Exercise 1: DETAIL AND TONE

Fallen Leaves Study. For this the subject is 3 dried leaves which I found during my walk, all three in varying stages of decay. I used colored pencils and oil pastels. I left the majority of the page white as I wished to capture the intense light and the lovely colorful shadows that the leaves cast on the crisp white paper that they were perched on. I enjoyed the success that I achieved with the papery delicate feel of the leaves and it was only till I had layered the oil pastel on top that the drawing "popped". What i learnt here was not to be "precious" with your work. Detail 1. Detail 2. And then I cropped it. I think that the composition is better here. There is less negative space and the longer format works better with the length of the leaves and the horizontal lines that they present. Some practice - Lemons in conte crayon

Project 2: Exercise 3: Creating Shadows with lines and marks.

Did a lot of practice here before I attempted the exercise. What I learnt here is that implied lines are enough and by not outlining the objects a looser, softer and yet "more real" effect is obtained. This is interesting to me - is it because the brain completes the picture and is therefor more involved in the process and is then more invested in being interested in the painting?! This was 4B pencil. This is some of the practice. Got bored so the bottom 2 ain't great...

Section 3: COMPOSITION. Exercise 1.

Composite drawing from sketches and photographs. This exercise excited me as I looked at the elements that interested me in the landscape around me and drew from previous work. I realised that a work didn't need to be constructed from only the visual information in front of me but could be drawn from elements in previous sketches and pieced together. I looked through the work I had done: Sketchbook for Exercise 1. and did some sketches: And decided to put together 2 works... the park sketch in charcoal that I did on the Sketchbook Walk exercise: And a 360 sketch of the view over a small stadium and the eastern part of the city. so as to combine the feeling of the concrete jungle and to reflect more fully the sanity of the park spaces in this mega city. This then the final work: I used a number of techniques and materials: Dipping pen with ink and wash, powder charcoal and green Japanese brush pen. On reflection I am pleased with this

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