Successful Drawing. 24/01/2012

Studying Fashion Design my approach to drawing has changed progressively, definitely more so since doing A-Level Art and Design where my work had a more fine art approach to it. At that point I was drawing to create a beautiful composition and to show skill- now my drawing has become heavily to do with 'articulating my concept'. In a way, I would think, that my drawing now serves more of a purpose, it has become more functional now and is vital in my design process. The manner in which I draw always seems to have an outcome in mind, the lines I am placing on a page often represent something other than a line, they now become a shoulder, sleeve or pleat. There are still classical drawing elements within the course, and it is briefs that incorporate all of the 'aspects' of drawing that I enjoy the most. Drawing architecture, installations and organic forms in a photographic and clear quality have all been integral to various briefs, but the drawing that means the most to me now is the illustration and sketching I do to project my design across to the viewer.

Respectively for the drawing I feel has been the most successful, I picked the line up for my last capsule collection. Achieved through a combination of graphite, pencil and collage- this drawing reflects this feeling I was talking about earlier, that the lines are serving more of a function depicting the silhouette, shapes and draping within each design. Collage is something I have progressively started to merge into my drawing, I like the combination and often in terms of time its quicker to depict something I know could be drawn but is readily available to illustrate the same point. Also in terms of the muses face, I wouldn't want to spend time articulating her features, its what what she's wearing that is important to both me and the viewer I am presenting it too. The element of the drawing I love the most is the fur trims around the hoods of the two garments, rather the abstract and quickened pace in which they were drawn, but they seem to be the most successful aspect, to me anyway.

My most successful drawing...

This is a scan of part of a drawing that I did on a sewing machine. Although it isn't a technically great drawing, I really like it because of the interesting line you get when drawing with stitched textiles. The way that the fabric bunches up adds another element to the image that is to some extent beyond your control. I quite like the element of chance. Also, because I'm not such a skilled seamstress, the sewing machine tends to run away with itself a bit so the drawings are fast and energetic. The image is from an illustration project I did and was intended as an internal illustration for 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck. He's one of my favourite authors and I really liked the project, so maybe this is another reason why I'm fond of this drawing. As far as my work is concerned, I think drawing is for communicating ideas and stories and I come at it from an Illustration point of view.

What is drawing for?

As a textiles student, my drawings are used primarily to gather as much information about a subject as possible before developing and translating them into a piece of textiles. Since being on this course, I have found my attitude to drawing has changed. I'm now being asked to consider and record interesting qualities of line, pattern, tone, form and texture; This was hard to get to grips with at first as I was used to producing 'finished' pieces of work rather than allowing myself to be more free with what I drew. There were many techniques we were asked to use such as 'continuous line', 'blind continuous line', 'stencils' and 'collaborative drawing' - all of which had no more than a 10 minute time limit which helped to free up our hand and mind.

The drawing above was one of thirty I was asked to produce for a project called 'Indexing the Personal and Impersonal'. I used a ruler to draw with, collaged some areas and worked on black paper as not to be daunted by a big white space! This drawing may seem naive at first glance, and before I started this course I would have thought so too, but recently I have come to realise that not every drawing i produce has to be technically accurate for it to be of use - in fact this one was probably more of use to me than if i had spent a week trying to draw the bottle and can opener perfectly! This drawing can be seen as technically wrong in terms of perspective and scale, but it has played a major part of the development in my project and eventually, this drawing will have served a purpose when it is turned into a functional piece of fabric.

Week 2 24 January call for postings

Week 2 24th January instead I'm asking for self-directed research and comments in a BLOG posting: This week’s question is about your own personal practice –what is drawing FOR? Which is your most successful drawing at moment –and why? Your assessment of what you are aiming for in your drawing and the features you think are successful will vary according to which studio discipline you follow. Please include some self-reflection about this aspect of your work as well, especially as the blog format allows you to compare, contrast and comment on other ideas and posts. Post at least one image and 100-300 words of reflection, analysis and context, please. with best wishes from Frances

GSA Term 2 Course 2012

Welcome to my new course blog for 2012! I'd like you to start posting entries in the weeks allocated for this between lectures. Also, take a look back at the last course blogs if you wish from the dim and distant year of 2009... the course tasks and assignment brief is a bit different this year, but lots of things are the same. Best wishes, Frances Robertson

about beginning again

In response to your beginning again with Rousseau, I was away looking at pictures for a week (teaching) and got such a strong urge to go back to looking by copying as a result, so it was great to see your posting. Haunting the National Gallery in London just served to inflame my interest in 17th century works full of gloomy passion by artists such as Poussin, Caravaggio, or Gentileschi, as here in Judith and Holfernes c.1625 which is in Detroit Institute of Arts I was drawing from today:

Quite apart from the questions about use of light, pose, gesture, etc that copying answers more clearly than anything else, I also began to get a real sense of how fully realised this event has been through drawing -in the book or the gallery you just go 'oh yeah that's Judith, etc.' but folllowing through the decisions about profile, costume, etc on the page with my own marks made that dreadful but ludicrous strategy -how do you go about chopping off an enemy general's head in a seductive guise begin to resonate.

The tiger in the rainstorm drawing and mine of Judith also starting me thinking about the different qualities of fright and violence in each image through drawing. In the tiger image with the coloured pencils there is that sense of lashing and striping that seems to fit so well. I'm trying to put into words the feel of the Judith image -guilty silence, the pause between violent actions. Are the marks I've used correct for this feeling?

Beginning again. Again.

On my wall for the last nine months I've had a postcard reproduction of Henri Rousseau's Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) 1891. I have been getting to know a new set of 72 colour pencils by trying to reproduce sections of it on to paper.