Free Inquiry Post #5: Texture

I’ve reached the lesson on texture on organic forms that I discussed in my last post on my inquiry project. This exercise is really really time consuming and pretty energy intensive. It takes a lot of time spent intensely focusing on objects which can definitely make it hard to work through the required two pages of organic textured forms in a single sitting. To accommodate for this I’ve been splitting things up a bit.

I stopped by the UVIC bookstore and picked up a new sketchbook and pen. I’ve been keeping these items in my backpack so I can work on these exercises while I have downtime on campus. I’ve only done a few of the organic forms so far, but I’ve found it really useful to have around. Often times I can be totally depleted of energy when I get home from school and it’s hard to do something energy intensive like art.

These are the ones that I’ve done so far at the school. In my opinion there is a stark difference between the two. The first one I’m extremely proud of (particularly the wool sweater portion which was really time consuming) and the second one has a lot of flaws. I did these both before lunch and the second one ended up being really rushed. I didn’t have much energy to do it with either and was crashing a bit. The textures aren’t easy to discern and there’s quite a few issues with them. Some key takeaways came out of it though, for example holes (like the ones in bread) are really hard to represent when drawing texture based on the shadows that they cast. I ended up colouring in the holes but this came at the cost of them having an illusion of depth. The machined steel at the top also didn’t work out well. Machined things need to be extremely evenly positioned and uniform if they have repeating patterns, something that can be extra difficult on surfaces that wrap around curved objects. I found it difficult to make the tomato sauce look fluid while still containing the larger flattened portioned. I also ended up drawing this section over an elliptical face that should have been a different texture and visible to the viewer.

Prior to these exercises the only texture thing I’ve done were the “texture gradient” exercises from DrawABox. I wasn’t as happy with this exercise. I think it went somewhat well, but I really put off doing it and felt a lot of pressure surrounding it. Overall I’ve been having a lot of fun with this exercise. I was pleasantly surprised with myself and being able to drawing some of these textures well. There’s definitely a lot of things that seem out of my range but this exercise is designed to be pretty extreme and out of something learners can do easily right way. I think I’m more comfortable making mistakes and working on these exercises in steady ways. Paying attention to their energy requirements will definitely be a big thing to keep in mind. Like the previous DrawABox exercises, I’ve found that taking notes directly on the sheet of paper after I finish drawing is a really great way for me to sort out my thoughts on the drawings.