Above a drawing that I made on paper about A0 size from the sketch that I have also been using to make the woodcut, below, which I think I have finished now. In my big drawing I tried to maintain some of the manner and looseness of the original sketch, I wanted to see how the scale would change it. I'm quite pleased with the result and I'd like to perhaps do some other large ink drawings based on sketches I make and things I observe and see where this takes me. I am enjoying the motive of suburban houses interspersed with palm trees, the palm trees make even mundane suburbia seem quite exotic to me, I find them very pleasing.
I had a really helpful chat with the drawing tutor today who is called Guillame. Unfortunately he is going to be working with the 5th years from now on but I'm glad I got the chance to talk to him. In our drawing class I discovered that the ultimate aim is to make a book! This was a little bit of a surprise to me but perhaps it will be a good challenge. I had already been thinking about doing some illustrations for a short story that Jon has written and I am thinking of doing some watercolours about A3 in size in order to do that, I hope they can be quite fluid and the colours bold-though with enough white space, I would then of course photograph/photocopy them and shrink them to book-size juxtaposing them with the text. (though I haven't started this yet) I had another idea which was to make a book just of drawings of the things I have observed which have caught my eye here- "les choses qui m'ont frappé". Sketches here are called "les croquis". So I could do drawings and then transfer them to screen prints to print a series of books maybe. Anyway I showed my sketches to Guillame and he seemed interested. He said he liked the sketch that the drawing above is made from partly because of the space around it, sort of drawing you in and somehow looking quite complete. (whereas with my other sketches I had worked right to the edge of the page which gives a different intensity and makes the space quite different I guess.) He said I should think about having areas of intensity and areas that were quieter by comparison. He also suggested I try working with them to a bigger size to see what would happen. I said that I hadn't really considered the light when I made the small sketches but he said perhaps this wasn't necessary as they are studies of space essentially, so perhaps this is what I should focus on. I felt really encouraged talking to him, I'm not sure exactly what he said but I felt talking to him that there was some potential in mes croquis, I should do more, and I should try to develop them, maybe keeping them quite gestural but also considering contrasts between having areas of high detail/intensity and areas with less detail/more space. I felt quite inspired to work, having arrived at school today towards the end of this lesson that to be honest I didn't know I had and feeling a feeling a bit tired a bit uncertain I suddenly felt v.inspired to work and I did indeed feel quite productive this afternoon. Hopefully it will continue! I have another sheet of paper set up in readiness!
