Thoughts on Drawing-Nikki Whang

I’ve never really taken a formal drawing class until this year. Throughout high school, I’d been working toward submitting my Portfolio to the College Board in senior year, so I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted with my concentration and breadth pieces.As a result, I did a lot of work with drawing with charcoal, mixing it with watercolors. It was kind of funny, considering I always thought I “knew how to draw,” but I realized there was so much more that I didn’t know when I took this class. I’m very thankful I learned the basics of drawing this year.It helped me focus more on composition, observation, and practice. This is one of the pieces that was in my portfolio last year.

Though drawing all that Gothic architecture could get a bit tedious at times, it made me view things with a critical eye, looking at shading, angles, the nuances of a landscape, etc. Before, I used to just draw subjects that I thought looked pretty, and often idealized these aspects, rather than think of the story behind it.

I really liked learning about subtractive drawing. My eraser was usually my safety and excuse to make mistakes; it was fun to view it as a drawing tool instead. I also tried to utilize pentimento, and not completely efface the original lines; I enjoyed the expressive feel it created. One of the works that I think best represents this expressive style is Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin and Saint Anne with the Christ child and the Young John the Baptist. Da Vinci’s use of chiaroscuro, the bright white highlights, and the layers of drawing combine together to create a rich and complex drawing.

Also, I already talked about this for the previous blog post, so I won’t dwell, but I just really like Jim Dine’s style:

I liked having the weekly sketchbook assignments; they forced me to draw several times every week, keeping my hand moving. I hardly ever kept up with sketching unless it was assigned, because I was always too busy with other homework. It was nice to now have homework that I also enjoyed. Hopefully, I can keep myself sketching every week, after this class.

My friend introduced this website to me: http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/#sketchy It simulates the sketching and shading qualities that artists use. It’s a lot of fun to play around with, and with just the movement of your mouse, you can shade an entire area. I also think it’s interesting that such an apparatus even exists. I’ve always thought of drawing as a very tactile process, something you can really put “elbow grease” into, and get charcoal-covered hands by the end. But, with always advancing technology, virtually anyone can draw and sketch and shade, without the mess. Some of them are really good, too:

(Also, this doesn’t really relate to drawing but it’s a lot of fun: http://neave.com/…get your 3-D glasses out!)