Exercise 2 Experimenting with texture
Pinterest link – https://www.pinterest.ie/Superhilbo/exercise-2-frottage/
This exercise was really helpful. I was suddenly very aware of the amount of stuff in the house with textures. It was also really interesting to see what I perceived to be the texture of a certain thing. Some of the surfaces that I experimented with were great and produced a strong impression. In some cases there was a pattern more than a texture that emerged, but it was still very cool and gave me lots of ideas on brushes for photoshop!
So to start I created the four sections in my sketchbook and drew what I thought would be the texture. I used graphite pencils, hb pencil and dip pen with ink. I loved the pen and ink. That was fun.
There was a texture on a small painting on wood that had a crackling effect. I started drawing that from memory and then it started looking like stone so I started to think about stone and drew that.
The fake fur lining on the cat basket was interesting as it was not sitting down in the way that fur would so it appeared more matted than real fur. Kitchen roll was interesting as the pattern helped to convey the texture but I don't know if it was texture or pattern as the focus here. I'm going to say texture but pattern was involved.
Beards were catching my eye and while watching TV I kept noticing beards and the texture of them, particularly the shorter beards. After that I tried wood and wool along with brick and material. This was really weird. The wool ended up looking like love hearts but the material was good as I tried adjusting the tone of it to give a sense of the texture.
Trying the dip pen was fun and I loved the lines achieved with it so this is something I've used in illustration but not for going into details with textures. The graphite pencil was nice enough to use but it didn't feel as good as the dip pen as I felt the lines were cleaner and a drop of water could change it all completely and give it more depth and energy.
This was fun to experiement with as it was a blob of ink and then just hands on. This could really work for the anger exercise as the marks made here could be turned into a texture such as a plush material, or used as a background of angry sky.
So the first couple of attempts I used a soft paper and tore it with the crayon, marker, pencils and chalks I tried. It was a total disaster. Then I went with a thicker paper, more a standard 80gsm photocopying paper and I also tried a 90gsm paper with a smooth finish to it.
The best paper was the 90gsm smooth. It was HPphotocopying paper but the smooth worked best with a crayon pencil and not a hb pencil. Chalk was not working and neither was the oil stick. It was too heavy. Purple, blue and grey crayon were used for this and they work very well.
Questions that are considered for each exercise are:
I created textures from my own memory and then tried a number of frottage experiments to see what textures could be achieved from paper and crayon.
How did I feel or think about it?
I loved it and found myself suddenly more aware of the things at my fingertips that could be used to help me achieve a pattern on paper. Some of the effects were unexpected and definitely helpful and I could see how this texture could work in an image or illustration.
How well did it go?
I think it went well and some textures went better than others. When using the paper the best tool was the crayon, but scanning it into the pc showed me that it could be used for inspiration in illustrations to create more texture in images and give it more depth.
Open my eyes to what is around me because there are plenty of things that are on my desk, in my home and at my finger tips that could be used in my images in some way. The texture done via paper was way more fun than trying to painstakingly image it or remember it.
How can this help me in future exercises?
A lot like the mark making, it gave me food for thought on how the image I create could be built up and considered more carefully. When doing an image the thought of texture is present but the manner in which I achieve it might not be on my mind. I feel like both exercise 1 and 2 gave me a new way to look at things and what I'm doing when putting pencil/pen/chalk to paper.