Today I was outside for a walk in the evening, it was already dark. I came by a tree that was entirely glowing in red light before the background of high-rise office buildings and the dark, cloudy sky. It looked wonderful and I took some pictures with the camera of my mobile phone.
Red tree at night
The motif has surrealist qualities to it. I immediately thought I’d like to make a drawing out of it, using the photo as a source. The camera captured less than what I could see, but the pictures will help to develop my idea for the drawing. I thought about the classroom technique of making scratch drawings over coloured layers in wax crayons.
At first, one layer of colourful wax is made on a sheet of paper, which is then covered by a second layer in all black. Then a sharp instrument is taken to scratch in marks, and thus the colourful underwork is revealed against the black background. This is a technique that might work for this project.
Another idea was to first paint in red watercolour the tree shape, then apply a resist with a fine brush, and then cover with a dark colour. After everything has dried, remove the resist and this will then reveal the reddish tree shape before the dark background.
I’m developing ideas for a drawing relating to the outdoor drawing part of this course. I want to revise that part and make more drawings that correspond to the various exercises. This one would relate to tree studies, and it might trigger some experimentation with drawing media.
Two ladies on a bench
Then turning around the corner, I made a brief break for the daily drawing into my “Moving People” sketchbook. So far there are only line figures in it which look rather quirky. The problem was that I was not able to capture anything else than that when people walked so quickly before me. But today I was at a different place and managed to make a quick sketch of two ladies sitting on a bench. I like this sketch, it looks very mature and it’s an extreme contrast to the earlier scribblings in that sketchbook.
I thought about drawing people from web images or photographs to give myself the opportunity for observation. But I definitely prefer to draw something real, not from a photograph.
Hopperian subway scene
Then later when I transferred the photos from the mobile phone to my computer I discovered an early picture I had made. I was very impressed because now I read this as a Hopper scenario moved to the 21st century. I made the picture before having been to the Hopper exhibition. It was a very unspectacular moment. I was waiting for the subway to come and just looked towards the opposite side of the station, where some other people were waiting.
The scene there looked so very characteristic for the subway setting that I thought to just take a picture. Looking at it now, about a month or two later, I find it almost fundamental and with inner weight. It looks just so similar to Hopper’s scenarios, with its strong contrast between light around the figures and darkness over the rails.
The three lost persons waiting for the next train to come. It’s like one of Hopper’s New York settings, only 70 years later. This would be a nice motif for a drawing as well, and it might fit into the figure project. I intensely admired Hopper’s way of making strong contrasts between lit and unlit areas in his drawings. This photo would be a good source for a drawing in Hopper’s style.