Line variations

 

Exercise 1

More exercises on exploring mark making, only by using a different medium this time: Charcoal. Unfortunately, I still haven't bought willow charcoal. So I was limited to chunky IXL blocks, made of charcoal, instead. Which I happen to love using, but they don't have a lot of line variation. It's chunky, or it's mostly chunky.

I may do these exercises again, once I get some proper willow charcoal.

 Exercise 2

There are numerous ways to represent images, via different line making. We had to explore what we were capable of. I actually strayed a little from the exercise, in that I decided to use a black and white, alternating sketch book. Which worked well, with my black and white IXL charcoal blocks.

White charcoal? Is there such a thing? Not really. IXL blocks are a composite of charcoal and other ingredients, which is why they range from black, to white and a few other, natural colours, in between.

Exercise 3

We even played around with natural disadvantages, effecting how the lines could be drawn on the page. Which is why this one looks all wobbly. It creates different marks, when deliberately creating obstacles between you and the page.

While the above sketch is not my favourite to look at, I appreciate the different effects it creates. I can change how I make my marks, if I want to.

Exercise 4 (start)

The final exercise, was the most challenging! We had to take an initial sketch from the reference image we had, and turn it into something else. The geometric shapes in my initial sketch, called "city-scape", to me.

Was it? Not sure. It kind of looked like one. So I gave it a try!

Exercise 4 (finish)

It looked more like a ghost town, afterwards! I'm finding in all these exercises though, it's more about practicing mark making, than it is about the "completed" work. Which is challenging for me, who harks from a background of representational art. Or Illustrations. So starting without a goal in mind, doesn't feel natural at all!

Yet it's exciting and strangely addictive, to continue pushing myself, outside my own comfort zone. It's like having to unlearn, what I have learned. It feels like I'm constantly fumbling too. I'm okay with that however, because I want to learn new things.