Sketch Book Starter - Sense of Place

For the first project the class was sent to Clifton Observatory and given a set of drawing tasks to complete. I didn’t complete all the tasks due to illness but below are the drawings I created during my time in Clifton.

The sketch on the right is my favourite of my drawings from Clifton. It was one of my first ever attempts using charcoal as my medium and I really enjoy both the visual intensity and the depth of tone it has given the sketch. I’m also happy with how it doesn’t stay in the lines, giving the drawing a sense of larger scale despite only being small.

On the right is a sketch of the rocks / cliff face visable from the observatory. I’m not very happy with the drawing though as I think it would’ve worked better in pencil or fine liner, the charcoal has given too soft of a line to accurately represent the harsh edges of the rocks. On the left is an attempt of surface etchings using pencil and charcoal. These were also fairly unsuccessful as neither medium picked up the subtle changes in textures like I wanted, these would’ve worked better with a crayon, or softer pencils than I had available to me.

Drawn with Pencil.

In both of these sketches I used plants and mud to incorporate elements of my surroundings to the page. I wanted to represent the nature around me by using it to make colour in my work. The sketches over the top of this are in pencil and fine liner, however they’re quite disproportionate and I think they look a little out of place.

This sketch also stands out to me as being more accomplished, I think this is because I spent longer trying to get the scale of the different parts of the conservatory rather than rushing it. I used charcoal again which has given the sketch very strong areas of light and dark contrast, which I think make the sketch more striking.