WEEK ONE 

Practicing good form in drawing with a 2B pencil. I found that the straighter lines came with confidence and the ability to know exactly where I wanted my arm to go, however it's easy to mistake confidence for fast hurried lines which actually produce more rigid looking lines. 

CASE STUDIES 

​​​​​​​Marnie Dean's The Foot of Chembooth, was exhibited in the series Churning of the Ocean of Milk at the  Woolloongabba Art Gallery in 2017. The Series collectively narrates Dean's understanding of the traditional Hindu Myth, Churning of the Ocean of Milk as she herself is positioned in India. Dean interweaves her cultural knowledge of Hindu myth with knowledge and symbols of Celtic mythology from her own heritage. She creates an altogether new cross-cultural story that promotes the empowerment of women through the Goddess Danu, celebrated in both cultures. Dean incorporates native animals such as the Indian Coucal, or rather the 'Chembooth' in Malayalam, to further empower women as for example this particular bird is associated with fertility and birth among the women in Kerala. The traditional red foot of the Mother Goddess from Theyyam and Kerala has been incorporated also. 

The feathers in this artwork and her use of India ink  is a clever connection to her position as a foreigner taking inspiration from her surroundings whilst in India. When Europe started importing ink from India it was coined as 'India(n) ink' but there is also the more important aspect of Shellac as sometimes a component of India ink which is sourced form the female lac bug found in Indian and Thailand forests. 

Ray Coffey has created a self portrait using charcoal and titled it 'Propaganda'. From this title Coffey seems to call out his own authenticity and prompts viewers to question his truthfulness. It brings a sense of insecurity and confusion with his position as an artist  with the massive self portrait hiding most of his facial features in a shadow of charcoal. 

Coffey's use of charcoal stuck out to me in that he is able to depict such a detailed lifelike portrait with what I would consider a very unstructured material. 

WEEK TWO - ORTHOGRAPHIC STUDIES 

Orthographic Drawing of a camera with reference. Ink was used with both a size 6 water colour brush and a bamboo dip pen. 

I decided I wanted to redesign my orthographic invention entirely and focus on vanity by creating a headpiece internally covered in mirrors. The left image is the masks interior with white ink to simulate shine from mirrors. It's intended to become extremely impractical when exposed to direct light. Struggles I experienced is that the mirror effect brought the nose area forward towards the viewer instead of retreating away like I intended it to.

WEEK THREE - PERSPECTIVE

3 Perspective drawings exercise of the vanity headpiece. 

2 point perspective, wine in a box

WEEK FOUR - PICTORIAL LOGIC AND DESKILLING

Learning to deskill and create pictorial logic within the composition of Romanesque or Gothic ruins 

WEEK FIVE - MAPPING AND DIAGRAMMING 

(left) Map of Space Odyssey scene in compressed Charcoal, Ink, Fiber tip pen and HB pencil 

(middle) Passengers 'Live a Little' Scene.

Map - the grid is really hard to define in this because I made each picture so busy. There is an attempt at two point perspective in the top right hand square, one point perspective below that to the left and underneath and an orthographic view of the "Vienna Suite" first floor in the bottom left. 

WEEK SIX - SIGHTING AND LIGHTING 

Using a sighting stick for the first time to determine relative proportions in space when drawing busts. Creating dimension using only 3 gradients of light, mid tone and dark is an economical technique that I found effective and will try to incorporate it into further works.

WEEK SEVEN - SIGHTING AND ABSTRACT MEANING 

Skulls applying sighting and lighting with 3 gradient reduction process of willow charcoal and eraser. 

WEEK EIGHT - LIFE DRAWING 

WEEK NINE - GESTURE LIFE DRAWING 

WEEK 10 - LIFE DRAWING AND CONTEXT 

Final A1 work. Making all the corrections necessary, I focused on creating a sense of space with willow charcoal forming the ground. The dark foot works cohesively with the dark hair but also to the way the cacti seem to be rotting from the ground up.