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 3: COMPOSITION. Research Point.

Contemporary Artists working with landscape and a range of viewpoints. Georges Seurat, Landscape with houses. 1881. Conte Crayon Tacita Dean, Fatigues. 2012. Chalk on Blackboard Mark Tansy, Reveler, 2012. Oil on canvas. The subjects of Mark Tansey's work is set in, for the most part, landscapes and he uses and manipulates these to serve the purpose of the allegory that he wishes to convey through the use of images which are paradoxical and at times absurdly but never, randomly placed on the canvas. I love his work and have included it here to compare the three works as they all monochromatic and unusual to their approach in viewpoint. In all three works there is a strong sense of division in the picture plane. The first two the space is divided horizontally and in the last vertically - Tansey's work has a strong sense of symmetry, both vertically and horizontally and this further emphasised by the repetition of this element in the mirror. Tonally the works are also...

Section 3: PERSPECTIVE. Exercise 2

As the weather continued to be rainy and wet, and as I did not want to work from a photo, I did a drawing of the buildings below my flat as seen from the 29th floor. This obviously changed the angle on the perspective and the horizon line. Using my pencil as a guide I checked the angles and proportions against those that I drew. As you can perhaps see, the horizon line was probably higher than what I thought it was .. some of the orthogonal lines were off...

Section 2: STILL LIFE: Exercise 2: Still life using Tone and Color

I did 2 completed studies for this exercise. The first is in chalk pastels on a dark ground. I thought that the dark ground was useful in contrasting the light areas but that the medium is more difficult to control. I also felt that the composition was successful and I enjoy the contrasting rectangular spaces which off-set the round shapes of the bottles and fruit. The second work was rendered in watercolour pencils and I felt that the medium was far more conducive to accurately capturing the variations in tone and colour. Overall I was more pleased with the first composition as it seemed a bit more interesting and dramatic in a sense.

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