"Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache." ~David Hockney
I love to write. That may be unusual for Art teachers, but it led me to a discovery about drawing which I think we would all do well to adopt if only to advocate for our subject.
Participating in the Iowa Writing Project one Summer, my professors challenged us to see that writing is a thinking tool. In other words, the process is an end inn itself, regardless of how the product turns out let alone whether or not there is an audience for the final product.
The same is true for drawing. It is in and of itself an inestimably powerful thinking and learning tool and it is valuable and accessible for ALL learners, not just those who excell in it. Everyone can learn to do it and EVERYONE should because EVERYONE can benefit from the process of observing and recording their observations and from visualizing their thoughts and ideas.
SKETCHBOOK PAGE: Working with HS Drawing students on using colored pencils. Found a photo of an old 'Phoenix city bus' for my demonstration drawing. 2017 NFS
ARTIST STATEMENT: (Based on the reflection questions given to Drawing II students for this assignment) I hoped to draw a city corner from my home town, so I entered an intersection near my high school into Google and a photo of a bus came up.
I could've relied more heavily on negative space. There is a sense that the bus cuts into the lot where it is parked, and there are tall, vertical buildings behind it. I think the shadow in front of the bus and the sense of space inside the driver's cabin are also ways that I used space.
I used the orange and purple that are the official colors of the Phoenix Transit System (and the Phx. Suns NBA team). I probably like them together because I grew up with them. I think that they occur naturally in Phoenix sunrises and sunsets. I admit, that I didn't limit myself to just two colors. I recorded all 9 of my colored pencils in a legend on the bottom of my sketchbook page, but I did try to use all of them as subtly as I could. There's a turquoise cast to the front windows and I ended up using blues for the sky and buildings in the background. That contrasts with the orange and pushes the background backwards.
Some challenges included the proportions and perspective of the bus- I had to erase and start over a couple of times. A big challenge was making the windows seem transparent, reflective and tinted all at the same time. Getting the tire and the wheel well were particularly challenging. I left out a palo verde tree to the left of the bus. That might have helped make it feel more complete and more realistic.
On the one hand, I could have had more cross-structures and focus on negative-space, but on the other hand I feel like I gained a lot of confidence by completing this drawing. I like the design and signage on the bus and was intimidated about successfully capturing it.