Week Four

In this lesson we were focussing on shading. We had a couple of tables set up in the middle of the room with a cloth covering them, onto this shone 3 different light sources: two lamps and the sun. I needed to look out for different types of shadowing being created, normal shadows, where areas receive little light (or no light at all) and cast shadows, where a different object or even the same object is blocking the light (object shadowing and self shadowing).

This is the first quick sketch I drew. I spent about 3 minutes getting the shape right, then the rest of the time I spent shading. I concentrated most on the darkest places, which I shaded quite hardly, then I tried to achieve a balance by adding in lighter places. I don't think I did this very well, though if I had spent more time on it I wouldn't have rushed it and would have achieved a better outcome. From doing this sketch I learnt that I need to practice drawing more quickly with accuracy.

My personal feedback from the previous sketch was to focus more on cross-hatching. I tried to do this, but didn't achieve the look I was going for. My cross-hatching effect turned more into scribbles than an effective shading technique. The only part of this sketch I like is at the top right, this is because I think the progressive tonal difference of the hatches work effectively, showing that the darkest shadows were at the top and it gradually got lighter. As I had never done cross-hatching before I don't think my attempt was too bad, but it has shown me that I need to practice it.

This was my final sketch of the lesson. I spent about 7 minutes getting the shape right then the rest of the time I spent on shading. I feel that this is by far my best attempt at drawing the item. I have managed to get varied tonal differences which have created a 3D look and feel to my sketch. For example, the folds on the right of my image actually look folded. I spent a lot more of my time on the right of the sketch and possibly neglected the left a bit, but I wanted to concentrate on getting a smaller part more detailed so I ran out of time for the left side. I wanted to include part of the shadow on the floor as I really liked the light effect that was seen, I tried to translate this look onto the paper. Overall, I am happy with this 2B pencil sketch even though there is always room for improvement.