SECTION 3: Townscapes. Exercise 1.

A visit to Kaiping has got to be one of the highlights of anyone's visit to China. This Unesco Heritage site was built by the wealthy Chinese returning with fortunes made in the USA on the American railroads and thorough businesses opened during that time. Because the landowners had much wealth the bandits in the area would rob and plunder their houses, the "Watchtowers" were built to see them coming and to protect their families and their fortunes. 5 - 6 stories high, the windows and doors are barred and small and a watchtower with a bell is usually seen at the top of the building.
Walking through these places the sense of time having stopped here is palatable and the feeling of the Ancestors roaming around is creepy. Inside the buildings huge alters where incense is lit to them bear witness of a China which is still attached to tradition and superstition.

As the village is still inhabited the people around there, although used to foreigners were not too keen on a long presence so sketches were done and drawings were finished at home from photos.

Here is one that is part of the village. The actual Watchtowers are shown in Assignment 3.

With the accompanying detail:

Sketchbook work

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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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