Shapes in the Light: Developmental Drawing

The outcome of this unit is to produce conceptual drawings that will eventually be made into a ceramic piece. And as I had been already drawing leaves in Observational Drawing unit i decided to carry on with this theme. As the theme Transformation is quite open I think the theme I used previously of Decay fits in well, so I followed that route. 

Although I had a wealth of source drawings from Observational Drawing I think in this unit you can go a little wilder with the subject matter. It also allowed me to evolve ideas I had in that unit which were a little more developmental, such as cutting out the holes in paper that I saw in the leaves etc.

(I really enjoy working with fine liner for picking out details, and I hoped that looking at different leaves would spark an idea in my head)

To investigate ideas for a ceramic piece we were asked to draw in more 3 dimensional ways at all angles, which for me proved difficult as my leaves were flat so I had to look at ways to make them interesting and consider how I would apply the flat image to a ceramic piece. I looked at curled up leaves aswell for contrast and these were lovely to draw and think about as a 3D pieces but there was something missing for me. 

(I really liked the shape of these leaves, and I think they would have inspired some lovely shapes in ceramics. But it didn't ignite anything in my development)

I am not what I'd consider a fine artist, I find beauty in pattern, so of course I collected more gloriously hole ridden leaves to draw. After looking back at my initial drawings I found that the more ragged and holey a leaf was the more I picked out pattern. So I illustrated both the whole leaf and then isolated the holes without any outline round them. Each leaf started to develop its own personality, purely through those holes, like leopards spots. Some leaves I discovered to be more interesting than others, at first glance a leaf with its holes can look so intricate but then you map it out and they are few and far between. I began to prefer certain patterns over others. So basically now I had come to point where I didn't see a leaf, I saw a pattern.

(Sketchbook pages looking at holey leaves and picking out the holes in particular)

In order to develop this idea further into a 3D piece of ceramic I started to play around with silhouettes. Could I use these leaf shapes as a cascading piece falling to the ground as they do in Autumn? How could I develop this into something that reacted with its surrounding? That is when it clicked one morning whilst I was sat in the morning sun. Holding up a cut out leaf and seeing the shadow cast on the wall. So that day I took a walk and found some real leaves to cast on trees and took some photos. This is when the for idea the ceramic piece was born.

 (The leaf which my final is based on. The more I reproduced the shapes the more it morphed and changed into something that was mine)

I started to look into more hole patterns and did some cut outs on paper at a scale I would probably use in a ceramic piece, so I could see what it would look like. I thought about how I would eventually construct something like this with my knowledge of how clay can be used. I also decided that I would like my ceramic piece to be hung so this developed into my final drawings.

 (I used thick paper to cut out the patterns so I could see them through light)

I picked out the patterns I thought were most interesting began adding lines to imitate string or wire and think they look really good at showing the effect the final piece could show. I considered how the glaze could be applied. As shown in my development I liked a stippled/speckle effect and a watercolour/ink effect. So these two were both at the back of my mind as I moved into my Ceramics Project. 

(final concept drawings)

I continued to work between my developmental drawing and ceramics to develop the idea to a meaningful conclusion. This meant that I could relate my drawings to the clay and consider it's limitations. How I would realistically be able to construct something. And although I had looked at the light shining through the leaves I didn't want to simply imitate that pattern. So I made that pattern solid, basically inverting those shapes in the light and abstracting them.