Observational drawing

Following on from looking at Mithu Sen's work, I decided to look more at skeletal structures. I got some bones of various animals, birds mainly. To look at and draw. I found the structural angles and the contours of the bones gave detailed shadows which gave a great tone variation. Especially with some of the more complete skeletons as they still have remains of different layers of their body, from the skin to muscles and each layer has decayed differently and has different textures. Some are smooth, like the bones, the skin is more coarse, due to the skin follicles where feathers would have attached. It gives smaller bumps of texture.



The texture of the paper gives my sketches more texture and by blending the different pencil tones which adds more depth to the piece. By using my handmade paper it adds more of a layered and organic feel, which matches that composition of the bird body and the weathered surface




Looking at a more delicate structure, this smaller birds skull has more defined details and has more fine lines and shadows. I found when drawing this that I ended up exaggerating the shadows to give my drawing more depth throughout the composition.






Looking at different techniques I attempted doing some single line drawing in order to try and make the contours and the angles of the piece look more fluid and give it more movement. I did two layers for these pieces, first using a lighter tone and then going over it and making more solid lines with a darker pencil to add to the depth of the composition. I drew these referencing from the above photo of the skull as the first photograph from this post. Each piece took me about a minute for each layer so two minutes for each one.




I then did some larger observational drawings which I tried to focus on the shadows and give these drawings more depth and dimention. I looked at how the shadows change by looking at different angles and lines of the skulls. Below I did a larger drawing looking at the light coming from the left and exaggerating the shadows on thr right hand side of the skull. I loked at how the light bounces off the smoother sections of the bone and gives them a brighter appearence.

Upon reflection of my observational drawings. I found by using my handhand paper, the texture is exaggerated when shading as the deeper points of the paper remain light. Comparing this to manufactures paper which is smoother and has a finer grain, which means theres less imprefections in the paper, but I prefer the look my paper gives as its more organic and raw, which links in with my concept and plan to look into the qualities of paper, and by being able to see the individual pieces of paper it helps show how natural it is.