Now, I am not totally devoid of ideas when it comes to drawing, but usually in Ronette's class there is a bit of instruction or direction at the start; there was a minimum amount of that. Add the fact I have no idea how to use the water-soluble material, and I don't paint, and I was a newbie in a masterclass. I kept working with color pencils and crayons and then promptly ruining them just dabbing them with water, and after a while I just drew. At the same time I stopped using the sheets with small gesso-ed windows and drew on the full size of the mostly-around-A2 sheets. (I must add, I was getting somewhat used to different ways water color pencils behave.)
And then, during the last break, I spilled water on all of my afternoon work and prepared sheets. What serendipity! Sam said I should take a brush and go over the colors and go outside the lines. And I did, and I liked it. The two drawings on which the water damage was the worst came out the best. I even tried recereating the spill on a third drawing as well.
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Most people in the class had used water soluble pencils before Meg which was why I had decided on them for the workshop. You really have to just have a go. There's no one way to use them. Serendipity often is the way you find out what's effective and what you may like. Make some 'mistakes' and then find perhaps that you like the effect and do it again deliberately. Your 'mistake' may just the thing you find interesting after all and may inspire others to work on theirs differently. You just have to try these things and see what happens.You can play with them and see what they do. Not really like weaving eh!
ReplyDeleteObviously, as I learned afterwards. I loved Pat's water color effects in particular. At first I wasn't sure about the very saturated effect of the WC pencils, but in the end I preferred it to the others' more tentative renditions. Just as I finally get to understand how pencils, charcoals and pastels work, you had to bring in another medium to learn! :-D
DeleteI did, though, feel like a blind person looking for a smudge on the wall in a windowless room at midnight, blindfolded. And visualizing drawing on small papers for a couple of weeks clearly didn't help me. Double :-D
I like the composition and bold colour, it is vibrant and real to me.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I seem to find very different what I like when others draw, and what I like to draw. This kind of vague images suits me, and yesterday another theme was, shapes in colors, so in that area, you could say, I did well.
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