Trip to York

York is amazing. Literally such beautiful place and the weather was perfect. I didn't feel like England at all. The buildings were so pretty and the town itself was cute and small.

We started off by visiting the National Rail Museum and did some observational studies of trains. I wanted to focus on relatively similar/the same trains and create a series of quick/more refined studies using various materials and techniques. I wanted to take everything into consideration from the module over the last few months from shape and texture, to tone and line quality, when creating my studies. 

I found it quite difficult to draw trains as they are such complex machines, particularly the old fashioned ones. I decided not to focus much on proportion and instead focus on the line quality, allowing me to not worry too much about making errors. I have learnt that drawing a subject with intricate detail and tonal values is relatively boring and reflects no sense of individuality - I like and prefer to take realistic subjects and making them into my own by playing with techniques.

This is a very rough sketch focusing heavily on line quality and tone through the expressive use of a pen. The scribble effect works really well and it allowed me to be very expressive and not worry too much about precision. I like the texture created through line work.

We then went to a park and did some further observational drawings, this time focusing more on depth. After walking around the park for a bit I found a perfect location which had a tree close to me and in the background was York museum (beautiful building). 

I decided to do a rough outline sketch of the composition. The closer the things were I used a thicker 

pen to create some depth through line quality, I also made things closer to me more detailed. I think it works quite well and there is clearly a sense of depth. I used a thinner pen for the background and had a much more free flowing, expressive way about it.

This next study I did was more focused on using shape as a way of communicating depth. I used darker block colours for the areas c,loser to me and then more detail lines for the things further away. I feel like I did it the wrong way round as there is something about the composition which doesn't work that well. The darker features should be in the background and the more detail features in the foreground. 

For this study I used tone and block shapes to create depth, this time inverting the idea of dark tones in the foreground and so the dark tones are now in the background. This is definitely the more appropriate one as it is clear that the lighter tones are in the foreground and the dark tones allow them to come forward and stand out. 

The trip was very successful and feel throughout this course I have learnt a lot about creating imagery through various types of media and using techniques such as shape, pattern, texture, tone, value and line. I have definitely improved my observational skills and im more comfortable in roigh sketching and not worrying too much about producing final images.