This project was probably one of my favorites to complete and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. I’ve always enjoyed working with charcoal and I think it’s safe to say that that’s the media I work the most in after pencil, so working in black chalk and conte was a safe zone, but I also learned a lot of new things on the way. This drawing required a lot of very tiny marks and my paper was quite toothy, so I had to overcome the extra texture by smudging and crushing the conte so that the entire paper was covered in shades, not just the tooth. I also struggled a lot with proportion during this project because of the challenging shapes that Raphael used when making the facial features on the Apostles. The noses were particularly hard to capture due to their awkward angles and shapes on the original piece itself. Personally, I understood Raphael’s marks and replicating them weren’t as hard to me as I thought it was going to be, because although a lot of it was quite gestural and loose, his marks had a purpose and very few were there just to add ‘fluff’. Much of the time I was working, I was struggling with the values and overall shape of each figure, because since they were both faces, I couldn’t mess up or skip over minor flaws since it would show clearly in the finished product. During this project, I learned about the value of shading with just hatching as well as putting as many lines on the paper as was necessary (I found myself putting too much value often!). The Old Masters project was especially special to me because I want to expand on portraits and my play pages in my sketchbook are on facial features (one was in charcoal!) and this allowed for an end product after those play pages. I will most likely use what I’ve learned during this project in my later studies of the human face and Raphael’s marks and values have taught me a lot about how Italian Renaissance artists slowly mastered the human body’s form. A high resolution picture can be found at:
collections.ashmolean.org/collection/search/per_page/25/offset/0/sort_by/relevance/object/38092
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I should have updated my progress earlier, but it's ok because I am not super far in the progress. I am copying the Old Master Raphael's study of the two heads of Apostles. This work is in black chalk and I didn't choose the right paper so it has a little too much tooth for black chalk, but I don't hate the texture that is showing. Also, I found out that it is really hard to work with black chalk because the marks have to all be really skinny and little in order to create a smooth shadow or shape. Raphael's marks are interesting to replicate, however, because since it was a drawing or compositional sketch, I can see where Raphael tried to find the shape of the head using different lines and shapes. I also love how this is not really a finished piece, so it is more just shadows and shapes on the page instead of tedious lines in the perfect places. I don't really like the placing of my eye or the proportion of my nose because I feel like both were differently placed on the original, but my friends and Mrs. Mosley told me it was fine. I also slightly changed the curve of the chin as well as the type of chalk that I was using. You can see that the first marks that I placed were different from the ones that I used on the figure on the left. Hopefully, this piece turns out ok because I really love the Old Master drawing. :) I'll update you soon on the finishing touches,
I really liked the concept of wabi and the beauty in maybe incomplete or imperfect objects or settings. Both wabi and sabi aesthetics focus on lonely and sometimes ignored aspects of art or daily life. I have always enjoyed working with 'rough materials' or being slightly messy in my marks and although I care about my art looking nice, I don't want it to be the perfect to the tee. In fact, I have ALWAYS loved the incomplete or kind of untidy or dirty look of some pieces of art. I plan on using these ideas during my non-objective work later during the year and hope to also consider making some Japanese style keeping these concepts in mind. Lastly, I was really interested to see the differences between the western and eastern differences in the perspective of aesthetics. Both sides have different interpretation but it seems as though they are interconnected with culture and ideas. Overall, I found this lecture really interesting and am glad that it connected back to things that we are learning in school because it made it more relevant to our studies. :)
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Authormy name is shreya. Archives
June 2021
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