"Great Expectations" was a pretty good choice for a novel, especially since someone pointed out it touched on issues for us students too, in that it's in part a story about moving to London and having to adapt to a new world. I read it way back, in maybe 2009, and watched part of the BBC series a few years ago, so the story is there in my head but also like a dream, so it was interesting rediscovering it. It also meant I had no clear visual language attached to it, so I could formulate my own as well as picking from what I remembered of it.
We did revisit the story, specifically through the black and white film, which is also really good for a black and white film (I'd recommend it over the BBC one because the actors are significantly less pretty and plastic and the pathetic fallacy is less overdone). I sketched during the film (left) and then reflected on it and what the project could become as well as researching it (right). I have a lot of opinions on Charles Dickens, though also the novel does seem to link in to the lectures on the Arts and Crafts movement and the state of Victorian London. I don't like the left drawings, but it was the moment I discovered one of my pens is water-soluble and one is not. The others are OK, I like the one clashing Pip with "Over The Garden Wall" because he fits the same kind of narrative, as well as the fact I found the more modern styled illustrations more interesting because they stood out and brought Dickens to a modern audience.
Again, the left drawings are from the film- I found the outfit details fascinating and continued to look at them in later drawings. The right is a drawing of Ms Havisham- I was trying to draw her looking as skeletal as possible, with really long bony fingers- only I drew overly-long fingers. The big eyes also seems a bit cliche, even though some terrifying sunken eyes wide with madness are very much what I imagine Ms Havisham to be like. Also, I don't know what the badly-drawn rose is for, I think I was thinking about her veil. The veil would've been an interesting focus because it very clearly hints at Ms Havisham being a spectral being, a ghostly presence, or an echo of her former self.
Although I don't think many of these drawings are technically much to what I could do, I think it's OK that there are mistakes and a bad mix of visual language, as making mistakes was the step to improving and forming more coherent views of the characters and my style for the project.
The first guided day was a trip to Essex- specifically Rainham and the Rainham Marshes (which aren't actually in Rainham but in Purfleet). Essex is weird- it's London but not London, and the landscape changes very quickly when you're sat on the train. The day we went it was incredibly windy, which I suppose gave it a Gothic feel, as well as being very othered from the sheltered city.
We started in Rainham drawing the churchyard. The gravestones would have made for a more relevant study but I kept being drawn to compositions that involved leaves, as in the very grey day they seemed to be the only sort of thing that stood out, and in a Great Expectations piece, could stand for a metaphor for the grain of hope for Pip's future in his childhood out on the bland and featureless moors. For example, even just approaching the church, I was interested in how the leaves framed the scenery:
Not to mention, of course, those yellow leaves there are seen in shadow- in reality they were very bright, hence I focused on them in my painting. It was a difficult painting and at the point where everyone went inside I stayed outside, meaning I probably spent about 40 minutes on it, including the time spent chasing it across the graveyard thanks to the gale force winds! This is how it looked after the trip- Katherina suggested it lacked a focus, and that I should take time drawing the individual tiles on, which I agreed with, though my phone didn't take good enough pictures for me to feel the extra time I spent on this really achieved what she was looking for. I think, also, there could have been better contrast in terms of light and cool colours between the church and the leaves- the whole painting seems too warm. I'm also conflicted about the way the leaves just tail off, and there is no branches painted in- I was going to paint it but again didn't get a good enough photo so left it. Perhaps it would have been a nice effect had it not just trailed off into white paper- an underwash of say, yellow, might have improved the composition. I also feel this could have taken up either more or less of the composition, so the apex of the church tower was either 1/3 or 2/3 of the painting, rather than in the middle, as it is the prominent vertical line of the painting and yet is not in a place that is pleasing to the eye.
We then moved on to Rainham Marshes, owned by the RSPB, to draw. It was easier here as there were viewing spots for bird-spotters that were inside and it therefore sheltered us while we drew, meaning I could do another painting (I wouldn't have had it not been for that).
Katherina didn't think this one was featureless while I did. However, the wash style of painting and the use of watercolours was a good choice for this, not least because I edited a lot of stuff out of the image such as the tractor and the motorway going across the horizon, meaning I had to fill a lot of stuff in with my mind, which doesn't particularly lend itself to detailed painting. It also captures the bleakness of the landscape well.
I also started this, looking at the marshes from a different angle, this time with pencil colours. It was surprisingly a lot of work to put the detail of the marshes in, especially were there were reeds etc- paint definitely would have worked better for this to capture more detail faster. Of course, the white bits are irritating and I feel I can't make a proper judgement on this unless I finished it, even though other people liked it.
Some pictures from the walk back- you could see London far off, while still there was so much space in all directions.
I tend to associate the London suburbs with posh people but maybe that's because I've taken the coach to and from Stroud many times which goes through all the fancy bits of west London, but actually Rainham and Purfleet had a lot of abandoned buildings like this. It was sort of like being back in Bedford- a downtrodden, unkempt commuter town with inflated house prices.
The next day we were in London instead, starting with Smithfield Meat Market. I started with watercolours again but it was way less practical in the middle of the street than it was in the middle of nowhere: I ended up having to leave it unfinished as someone started pressure-washing the pavement behind us. I think I should have learnt from the painting the day before that watercolour was not a good notetaking device, particularly for buildings, but I think I was too interested in producing paintings that week, given I've made this mistake a few times.
Watercolour was particularly a bad way of getting the great details in the roof of Smithfield Market itself, though I feel if I had had more time, I might have done an alright job. This is a nice start- it gets most of the shapes quite well and the location is recognisable from only a few colours.
We then moved on to St Barts Hospital, where the sky started to darken and it got very cold all of a sudden. Therefore, even though I moved on to trying to get more detail with pencil colours, it didn't happen because it was too cold to draw properly.
I also got a small drawing of the Old Bailey before lunch, but none of these buildings I could envisage using in my work and I was cold and uninspired, so again, it's very simple, though the red with pink is quite different to what's in the rest of the sketchbook.
After this however, we went to the Museum of London! This has since become one of my favourite museums in London and is definitely very underrated. It was full of relevant information so I rearranged some of the activites on one of the other days, knowing how cold it would be, in order to come back here and continue following a line of work I found useful.
This is one of my favourite drawing from the week, and was definitely a life-saver in that I could get stuck into it, and was more happy with the outcome, which meant I kept my focus after this on the project. This was probably the time I best saw the characters in my minds eye- I thought about whether Mr Jaggers would have been a messy person like this, or whether he got headaches and liked keeping the lights low like it was in the museum. I later coloured this drawing in preparation for my final piece, which is based on this drawing primarily:
With colouring process!
(This isn't an animation of all the layers, I flattened the clipping layers). I was most interested in getting a composition with good lighting, mostly because this is what I've been focusing on when trying to learn digital art- because you can get all those cool effects without thinking about it too much during actual drawing. Incidentally, since I didn't like my final piece, I think this is wrong- thinking about lighting very little until the end is very lazy illustration.
This piece lacked contrast, which I definitely tried to up at the end- but also I've been getting very frustrated since this piece with the fact that because Photoshop has no stabiliser tool, I have to depend on ink drawings to create lines and I'm finding it restrictive. This is probably my biggest flaw throughout these drawings- Johanna mentioned it in the Spitalfields project (which will be posted about in due course) that I tend to only think about drawings in terms of lines because of my comics background. This is wrong in part, because I also have a fine art background, and Johanna doesn't like comic style, but I think I have problems connecting my skills doing realistic painting and fine art stuff with illustrating. Part of this I feel will come from learning to paint on Photoshop, which is what I'm teaching myself over the winter holidays.
Being pleased at the time with the linework though, but also lacking in time before the museum closed at 17,40, I switched to brush pen for the next drawing.
I like this, again, but I'm kind of annoyed with myself for messing up the writing on the top sign, where I absolutely ran out of space for "Wines and Spirits"!
The next day I took myself to Leadenhall Market. It was an inspiring place in terms of architecture but it was a daunting prospect to draw the ceiling, especially since it was cold again. Hence, another unfinished watercolour of the outside of the Lamb Tavern.
The thing with the Lamb Tavern was that it was a real sausage fest- I only realised that day that where I live and normally haunt in London (besides Covent Garden and the lecturers at uni) there are very few white men, though in Islington there were lots and lots. There were only 2 women in the pub and the whole atmosphere was a little uncomfortable. The only things I heard from the guys I was drawing at the bar was "Winchester" and, of course, "slut". This is Pip's London too- very white, upper-class male, very little has changed here since the Victorian times, including the fact that everyone was in suits. The barman was nice though.
This was then the day I went back to the Museum of London for a bit to draw more, this time getting some of the outfits, given that I had so little character stuff and so many buildings. I drew in the Pleasure Gardens bit, where there was very little lighting, so this drawing is heavy on shadow, but I think it gets most of the details down adequately and I could later use it as reference.
The next day was a guided day, although I didn't get as much done as the other days because we spent most of it walking and not drawing.
Also I was late because the email said "London Bridge" when they meant "Monument", but it's ok because I wasn't the only one stood on the wrong side of the river for 20 minutes. We eventually got to draw Old Billingsgate Market from the outside, though it's not a market anymore, and I wondered if Borough Market on the other side of the river would have been a better choice, but I don't know how old it is. Billingsgate had a leadership conference on and there was only one woman there- something I pointed out a few times very loudly. This part of the river was somewhat uninspiring and I have no idea why I drew in mechanical pencil, I think perhaps I'd not bought my other pencils.
We then walked along to the Tower of London, to paint Tower Bridge. I went for something a little different again but didn't get to finish again for obvious reasons. November weather, huh. (Also I have no idea why I didn't use watercolour paper for this one?)
We then walked round to the Captain Kidd pub in Wapping. It was a pretty good place to draw, especially since if you sit in the window, they open straight over the water and you can draw the pier where the river police were docked. I planned to do this after drawing the bar over lunch but we weren't given much time here.
We then walked as far as Limehouse before bailing since it was unlikely we'd get much time at the Museum of London Docklands since Ann wanted to walk all the way there and some people had yet to have lunch since the pub was expensive, and going home to work on these paper dolls:
I like these paper dolls and I think pinning them up in the exhibition was what saved the fact my final piece was so bad. They're cute, play on my strengths while also not being too anime for the topic, and have a good sense of character. However, trying too hard to caricature how I think Pip's clothing would have been too big for him and fit him badly, as a metaphor for how he was out of place as a gentleman, and it just looks like the anatomy is bad. The watercolour also obscures some of the linework which means I'm not sure how much of a good decision this was as a media. Even though they weren't the paper effigies that were requested in the task, I was please with how they turned out, particularly as this was my first time producing paper dolls.
I missed Friday because I was travelling for Thought Bubble, but I did draw in A Crowd of Favours on Kirkgate in Leeds, though was slightly distracted catching up with some friends (the guy moved).
For my final piece I returned to my favourite drawing of the project, the office, and developed it into colour. I was torn because even at the time I found the lighting and colouring hard, so considered doing it in black and white where I could retain the impact of the original line drawing, but also I think sometimes playing safe doesn't teach you stuff and I wanted to learn something from my final piece.
I did two versions, ending up using the one with text for the final exhibition:
The process shows I had more steps put into the lighting but I think in actuality more of a focus on colours would have been better. I also went over-complicated on the lighting process, since I had no references for an image with two light sources and it's therefore badly executed.
Maybe since my unhappiness with the final image forced me to properly reassess how I draw (or at least, how I draw digitally) I did learn something from it, just not what I felt I wanted to learn. Although it was irritating to do an exhibition featuring work I really didn't like, I did enjoy this project, and it was great being able to see work from the whole course at least once in the first term.
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