Mark making experement. It's lacking tones, looked alright before I scanned it in.

I never expected myself to suddenly be amazing at photorealism. Although I would like to keep a photo-realistic tone in my work. Spending time looking at it in more detail has helped me to look at my subjects in a different manner and I feel my observational skills have deffinatly improved even through a relitavly small project such as this one. To get information on the matter I used google to find different articles. I found one of these very useful. I havn't found this process too difficult, I think this is because it is very similar to my usual style of work but invloved being a lot more precise in the markmaking. I think having the skills that I have learned during this project will help me in the future because if I want to draw for a living I will have to learn to be very observant and controlled.

Deffinatly going to need to buy some more decent coloured pencils. Borrowing Matt's can only go so far!

This was one by a 17 year old. It is very insperational.

Scumbling in colored pencil means something rather different to the dry-brush painting technique. Colored pencil scumbling is a method of shading using tiny circles, sometimes called the 'Brillo pad' technique, due to the texture of that brand of steel-wire scourer. The texture created depends on the size and pressure used to draw the circles - you can create a very smooth finish or a rough and energetic surface. Scumbling can be used to layer a single color or with alternating different colors.

You can also use a more 'concave' scumble technique to create textures. Using a sort of figure-eight or 'daisy' shaped scribble and spidery lines, rather than a round circle, creating random dark patches and a more organic looking surface.

Susan Poole

I am looking into using coloured pencils. The texture and colours that are achieved are really interesting.

Photo-realistic drawing tips by H. Edward Brooks

1. Use an architectural pencil (a lead holder) so you can continually keep a sharp point while drawing. I suggest a range from HB to 9B. I rarely use the H’s as their color is less rich and has a shiny appearance.

2. Choose your paper carefully for the amount of graphite it can hold—I am using Stonehenge’s print making paper. It doesn’t have the sizing of a watercolor paper so it really soaks up the graphite, allowing me to get more graphite on the paper at once.

3. Begin your drawing by lightly blocking in your subject, then start massing (adding) in the major forms. Let the large shapes of light and shadow guide you, detail comes later. Work the whole drawing, don’t linger in one area. Bring the whole drawing along slowly, much like a photo developing in a darkroom tray.

4. Once your drawing is well along, and you can see all the major shapes of your subjects, it’s time to fully develop the darks in the background. You do this so that you have something to compare the rest of your values to.

5. When creating your deepest blackest values, patience is the key. Work your pencil and powdered graphite very lightly, caress the paper. You will get your darkest darks by building up multiple layers of graphite, maybe as many as 20 layers.

6. For graphite powder, I grind my own using a mechanical pencil sharpener and 6B, 8B, and 9B leads. Bottled graphite powder that you can purchase is just not as rich. Find a soft cotton cloth to use when applying the powder. Use a buffing technique, much like hand buffing or waxing your car.

After the third layer, apply a light workable fixative and let the drawing rest for a couple of days. The paper will rise (expand), much like foccacio bread dough. You can then apply more layers of graphite. Fix about every third layer in the dark areas, and continue adding darks until you reach the value you want.

7. Continue the rest of the drawing until you are satisfied with the range of lights and darks throughout the entire piece. For this step, you may want to create a value strip using the same paper as the drawing. I use value strips to compare all of my light, mid-tone and dark valuesfrom different areas of the image until I think I’m finished. At this point I put the drawing away for a week or so and work on something else. I need to refresh my eyes for that drawing. When I decide to look at the drawing again, I set it across the room towards dusk. If the drawing holds the room, my work is done.

Jerry Winick

Utterly amazing artist.

Project 1

I'm starting with photorealisitic drawing. I'm already a pretty established drawer but I want to improve on my ability to make it realistic.
I concentrated alot more on smudging the shading rather than just using the streight pencil mark. Exploring photo-realistic provides a good opertunity to improve my observational skills.
I didn't find this too hard to learn. Although making sure the tone was exactly right was more challenging.

Com tech 2

So I just got my first brief of the second year. knowing it was com tech I was worried I would have to do something really difficult like making the website last year. This year I'm actually excited to do Com tech. Basicly we have to think about the different technologies that we might have to use as practitioners and set ourselves projects to learn how to use them. I'm thinking of using mainly mark making materials and paper and photography.
In more detail, I would like to generally practice my illustrations and refine them, learn how to create textures using different mark-making materials, experement using different materials in general in my work.
Photography wise, my aim is to do lots of projects based around me learning the basics on my camera. I know the really basic this such as the Macro, portrait etc settings, but I would like to learn basic compositions, using lighting to my advantage, things like that.