A sketch of a building at Paddington Basin, made by oil pastels. Although the building is dull and industrial, I liked the way different colours were highlighted by a grey and cloudy sky. I always change at Paddington when coming to London and enjoy seeing this place growing and transforming.
Some flowers in a vase. Watercolour, pastel pencils, promarkers in skin tones and a fineliner. I was looking at these flowers for a long time, trying to understand which colours to mix to draw the thin, almost transparent petals.
A view from my window on a sunny day, in watercolour. I liked trying wet on wet and dry on wet techniques for the clouds and bushes.I like the architecture of this staircase and the way that the view and the lines change as you move up the stairs. I love The Victoria and Albert Museum and always find something new for inspiration there. This was made by using pencils, watercolour pencils, brush pens and gouache. I think I can improve the depth here by adding darker tones.Everyday objects and magazines lie around in my flat no matter how much we tidy up. Organising them in a collage could be one way of dealing with it. I used gouache, ink, watercolour, fine liner, cut outs from magazines.
The Serpentine Lido at Hyde Park. I quite like the watery and subdued effect of ink. I think I can improve the quality of the lines I drew with a calligraphy pen nib.
Sequins, silk, organza, velvet, lycra, lace in disarray of colours. My not so organised response to very organised rolls of fabric at a shop in Goldhawk Road. I used liquid watercolour.A fragment of a an old gate with cracked layers of paint in my local park drawn with watercolour, gouache and pencils. I like the idea that the cracked paint created its own pattern on top of the relief. A study of Yinka Ilori’s chair at The Design Museum. I like the contrast of the monochrome and vibrant palettes. I used charcoal, fineliners, pencils, promarkers, felt tip pens, crayons and collage. Not sure if all this media works together. I think my favourite part here is a quick continuous line drawing in black fineliner and a coral promarker in the bottom left corner. Some quick sketches of people on the train, a statue and a column in The Victoria and Albert Museum. Drawn in pencil and edited and Photoshop. I enjoyed putting unrelated images together which resulted in an absurd effect: statues travelling on the tube and an ancient column being a design on the train.
Reflection
I enjoyed using a range of media for this task as well as creating both quick sketches and some which took more than an hour. I tried oil pastels for the first time when stopping at Paddington for 20 minutes and doing a quick sketch of a building. I like the way the pink flowers turned out in watercolour. I edited this drawing in Photoshop later for a sublimation print and the colours started to look more vivid. I think I can develop it more and create a repeat pattern or a stencil. I loved using liquid watercolour on wet paper for the fact that the end result will always surprise you. Honestly, this task was a bit difficult at the beginning because I tried to edit my drawings at home to create the result I wanted to see, and this took a long time. On the other hand, I enjoyed being limited by the time spent on the train as I had to draw people quickly before they get off. This helped me to focus on their prominent features.
As for patterns, again, I tend to spend lots of time thinking how the end result will look and keep on changing ideas and editing drawings. I need to learn to work quickly and more productively. Overall, now I can’t help but look at little things and think how to create a pattern with it or what media will be best to use to draw it. More to learn…