AS Graphics Unit 1: Sketchbook

Drawing with scissors

S. John Ross or "The Silhouette Man", was an American-born Australian artist and showman, famous for his miniature silhouette portraits cut in black card.

He worked quickly with a pair of small scissors, cutting portraits from thin matt black card. He usually concentrated on the profile, but would also enhance the portrait by snipping out a few details. Each portrait was mounted on white card.

Overheard conversation

The point of writing up an overheard conversation was to be more creative. By taking something which could be average and mundane and transforming it into something more interesting on the page (interesting like it would be to those actually involved in the conversation). As you can see I took the speeches theme and based my images around that by using traditional Chinese symbols.

Patterns

While they may not seem it to the average person, the symbols I decided to draw on the models face are actually magical runes which feature heavily in one of the book series's I like. Each symbol has a different meaning such as strength, foresight and healing.

Contour/ gesture drawings

All of the above drawings were done in biro straight away (no pencils or rubbers allowed). This meant I resorted to just adding more layers on top and more lines to correct any mistakes or add more detail. By doing this it gives the finished images a more casual look. This technique taught me it's possible to relax more with drawing and instead of doing a 'guideline' or pencil sketch first, sometimes it's good to just get straight into it.

This is just one example of a page where I try to vary to fonts I use in my hand-drawn text.

Food packaging

The point of drawing food packaging was to take something we see and use everyday and take time to notice all the detail. As you can see, any mistakes made were embraced as I did it in blue biro straight away.

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