Exercise 4.2 Pencil drawing on a tondo.

Make a series of three circular pencil drawings, using coloured pencils, of a scene in your house. Choose from the list above, or something different. Any size, any surface.

I feel inspired by the work of Frank Stella and the unusual concept of the tondo being fused together. Could my series of drawings overlap somehow?

Richard Pettibone had made miniature replicas of Frank Stella's works and I like the idea of the circles uniting.

Figure 1

Richard Pettibone Frank Stella, "Hiraqla II," 1967 1968

I played around in my sketchbook to try out ideas and compositions with windows. Some windows from my house and some from hotels I had stayed in.

I have written at the side of the drawing that I feel I am just trying to be clever and 'think outside the box'. I liked the unusual concept that I have explored. I do not have the knowledge or capability to produce the best outcome at present. I think these ideas are concepts that I can expand on in the future, threads of ideas to be picked or pulled apart to unravel the bigger picture.

My tutor's feedback indicated that I might comment further on the above drawing.

I really wanted to push the overlapping geometric shapes and angles of Stella's work. I like the different directions the viewer is pulled into and out of and the colours also contribute to this feeling, warmth and coldness intermingled. I think this study has an intrigue within and could be developed further for Assignment Five perhaps? You are invited into the space and then entangled within it somehow.

You feel contained but free at the same time, the perspective is a confusion of spaces, rather like David Hockney's view on perspective and shifting viewpoints in the below video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrFDGct4kH8

I made some pencil sketches in my sketchbook and on loose paper to get a feel for the sort of series of drawings I wanted to complete.

Plants and flowers in the house and garden.

The landing light (pun intended).

Chair by the window.

I also noted the negative space Morandi leaves in his drawings (I have printed and copied one of them in my sketchbook) would this be an approach I want to adopt for my series?

I started to think about how I look at the environment I live in and how I want to communicate what it means to me.

For years, I have looked down from an aircraft or even from a high up hotel vista over the metropolis and in my first module towards my degree, Drawing Skills One, I explored the concept of looking up to where I had once been. The following Practice of Painting module had been looking out and through for example, aircraft windows.

I want to explore in this module,and possibly for my assignment piece, the aerial view of my environment or looking down. I feel comfortable looking down, and I don't think that will ever change. It's normal for me to see things from an aerial perspective.

I drew small sketches and concept ideas in my sketchbook.

These plant images are from an uplifted and elevated position, looking down onto them.

I did consider using the floor plan of my house as a concept for these drawings but I think they will be too linear and architectural (boring!)

Some of my artificial orchid plants are now mixed together with the real thing. The reason I am telling you this is that orchids have aerial roots and are almost always adventitious. This means the root system may be underground or aerial, rather like how I feel, rooted to the ground now but still feeling up in the air.

The series of plants drawing is therefore called Adventitious.

Adventitious 1

Coloured pencils on black mixed media paper- tondo 23.5cm diameter

I have left notes on the side that I wrote during drawing. The above note is an observation that not only does sketching enable me to easily experiment with a composition but it is indeed the gateway to painting. Is painting just drawing with paint?

Adventitious 2

Coloured pencils on white watercolour paper- tondo 23.5cm diameter

This piece was a nod to Morandi. His drawings had crosshatched lines and white negative space.

Adventitious 3

Coloured pencils on grey pastel paper- tondo 23.5cm diameter

My notes say "ridges in the underpainting, pencil, burnishing, building layers and variation of line help with painting and thinking about colours". The pencils I have drawn on the side are a nod to Hockney. I can't find the picture but I remember Hockney had drawn the pencils at the bottom of the image and it made me laugh, I like his sense of humour.

I rearranged them with a digital border. I really think I prefer them raw and without the border because they are personal with the 'workings out' for want of a better phrase.

I enjoyed the drawings very much, blending, burnishing and cross hatching the colours to create variation of line.

References.

Pettibone, R. (1967/8) Frank Stella ‘Hiraqla II,’. [ Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 6 3/16 x 12 1/4 x 1/2" (15.7 x 31.1 x 1.3 cm] At: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79580 (Accessed 10/08/2021).