Drawing with Objects: A Journey Scrapbook
I decided to make this journey part of my trip to the Post Office (one of few shops that remain open during lockdown), I can doodle a few things on my way and at the end will get a receipt I can include in the sketchbook! I thought by giving the journey a purpose, or destination, I could count on getting an object I could use in the sketchbook.
I started at the river beside a park, and worked my way through the quiet roads, to the high street and end at the post office. I wasn't sure what I would find on this journey that I could draw or stick in the book, but I went for it nonetheless.
Part of the exercise encourages you to take photos and work on those. So I did! This felt closer to having fun with the style of Christoph and Saul, and true enough, it was fun. I wanted to take photos that I could create a little scene with, perhaps even a little narrative. So beside drawing a few moments, I mostly set out taking photos which I would later stick in my sketchbook and draw on top.
Christoph's photo illustrations seemed to capture the ordinary objects that have no real inspiration to them. He manages to make them inspiring with his illustrations, turning the ordinary in to a scene - I really enjoy looking through this work and feel inspired by his imagination.
I found that Saul's photo illustrations were a little more deliberate. They seemed to have been positioned in a certain way, with objects staged to create more of an installation for the in person experience, and not necessarily designed for photos. His illustrations looked to be drawn on the objects in most cases, which you can imagine being installed in a gallery.
I aimed for Christoph's style more so. A printed photo with illustrations on top. I had a white gel pen which would stand out against dark images, and a black marker ready for the lighter images. With an empty mind, I simply sat and stared at the images for sometime until ideas came to fill the space. Not such an easy task!
It was nice to take the sketchbook out for a walk. Choosing to make the journey in the home would have felt more restricted than the lockdown itself, and having spent so many hours walking around the rooms, this exercise felt it needed to be outdoors - for my sanity! The weather pushed me to draw quickly, which is great practise for this entire section of the Sketchbook course. I wasn't caring about perfection, I just wanted to get down as much as I could as quickly as possible. It was loose and fun! My least favourite sketch was of the man fixing a security alarm outside a shop on the ladder. I found drawing objects in the environment carried more interest, and for practise this might become a continued exercise during local walks.
I hope I was successful during this exercise. It was a great change to the way I would normally work when throwing in photos of real objects in to the mix. It was really fun to draw on top whatever came to mind, and it certainly made you look at objects in a different light. Overall I enjoyed this process and would look to include more doodles in this section.
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