What I did at art class today. (30/5/2024)

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Actually yesterday, because it's after midnight again! In this week's art class we did a landscape with a tree in it. (See above.) My taxi came to fetch me at dead on half past one! I thought he wasn't going to come for a bit, and then he came at dead on half past! When I got to art class I went to the toilet, then I got myself a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits. I don't know if I told you last week, but a guy called Peter came with his wife Sandra and their golden retriever Bailey. They were there again this week, and Bailey was being a very good boy. He's always a good boy. He just lies around looking bored! We were using charcoal to do our drawing today. We had three types of charcoal. The first was willow charcoal which is very long and thin and can be used for the initial drawing and light shading. It is very brittle and I broke mine! By the end it was in four pieces, and I lost one! The second was charcoal pencil, which is just like an ordinary pencil, but filled with charcoal instead of graphite, and it makes a thicker, darker line. The third type was compressed charcoal, which is like a big stick of charcoal, and it makes the darkest mark. First we were told to get out our sketch books and draw a few lines with each of the types of charcoal. Then we used our finger or a blending stub to blend the charcoal down from the lines we had drawn. Then we were given a small picture of a landscape with a tree and we were told to use the law of thirds to transfer it to a rectangle that we were to draw in our sketch books. So we drew lines on our picture and on our rectangle in our sketch books, dividing each into thirds. Then we copied the picture into our sketch book using the grid as a guide to where everything should go, just like the other grid method we've been using to enlarge. Then we started to add details, but I had barely started on the details when our tutor, Tina, told us to stop what we were doing and go and choose a picture from the board to copy for our main drawing. I chose two pictures, so I could then choose which one I wanted to do, and the other I would take home and maybe do one later at home. After I'd decided which picture I was going to draw in art class, I put the other away in my bag, and then drew a grid using the law of thirds on both the reference picture and on the drawing paper. I then proceeded to draw the tree trunk on the right with the willow charcoal. I had a bit of trouble getting the branches in the right place, so there was a bit of rubbing out to do. Then I drew in the gate and the fence posts down the bottom left. The fence posts get smaller and smaller as they recede into the distance, and this is how I got some perspective into the drawing. Once the initial drawing was done I started blocking in the trunk of the tree. I started with a thin layer of willow charcoal, then went over it with the charcoal pencil. I left white paper where there was light and blossoms or leaves. When Tina came over I told her I thought my charcoal pencil needed sharpening. She said, indeed it does, but then she said, You can use the compressed charcoal for big areas like that tree trunk, don't forget. She went and sharpened the charcoal pencil anyway. So I used the compressed charcoal on the rest of the tree trunk, and down the bottom left and right. I used it on the largest gate posts, but then I switched to Charcoal pencil for some of them and then willow charcoal as the posts receded into the distance. But I had problems with smudging, because I kept leaning on the drawing and getting charcoal on my hands and spreading it around were it shouldn't be! Charcoal is very chalky and I was constantly blowing charcoal dust off the drawing! It was very messy. There were some baby wipes on the tables for us to clean our hands on. After I'd done the trunk of the tree and the dark places down on the left and right, I went onto the branches and then I started putting in the leaf details. Then I put in the indication of bushes and trees in the background. I was still having trouble with smudging, and there were charcoal fingerprints all over the drawing! I tried to rub them out, but compressed charcoal is not so easy to rub out as willow charcoal. Tina asked me if I would like it fixing, so I said, Oh, yes, please. So she fixed it with hairspray in the kitchen. Then I could work on top of it, but I could no longer rub out what was already there. At about 4:50pm Tina told us to come over and put our drawings on the floor so everyone could see them. She asked me if mine was finished and I said, I'm calling it finished because I ain't doing no more to it! Then my taxi turned up and we were still talking about our drawings, and about what we are going to be doing next week. I said, I hope my taxi doesn't go without me! Eventually we packed up, and at 5:10pm I went out, got in the taxi and went home. When I got home I showed my Mum my drawing, had my dinner and watched some telly. What have you lot been getting up to today? I hope you are all well. Have a great night.