Field Trip to the Garden

This week we changed things up a bit in Drawing class - we took a "field trip" and went outside to the garden across the street on the main section of campus. It's a beautiful corner of campus with a waterfall at the top that flows down into the fountain at the very corner. There's flowers and all sorts of plants everywhere, a beautiful stone bride, and benches and swings tucked away in little nooks. It's one of my favorite spots on campus, so I loved that we got to have our class out there!

From the garden, looking at the art building

We didn't draw the whole landscape, but focused on texture, which has been our topic for the past few classes. Our professor had us find a texture that we wanted to study close up and draw. First I picked a section of rough bark on the tree. This one wasn't too difficult as the shapes and shadows were very clear.

Next I went for more of a challenge with a bush. I tried one method where I blocked in the major areas of value, then gradually darkened and lightened some areas to add more detail.

This worked okay, but it was quite sketchy. My professor came by and suggested another method - since the part I was drawing was mostly light lines on a dark background, he suggested I lay a whole layer of a darker shade down, then erase out the light lines, and then further define those lines.

This method was not only way faster, but ended up as a much more cohesive, put together piece. I loved learning this new method, and I'll be keeping an eye out for other ways I could use it!

We're also beginning our work with charcoal where we use this same "reductive" method - laying down a whole dark layer and then erasing out the highlights. Here's my first in-class piece from that!

I'm so excited to see all that we get to do with charcoal! I really enjoyed learning these things this week and look forward to learning more.