Tuesday 3 November 2009

Mushroom drawings







Part of the collection project. I started doing some drawing from pictures in books (not shown) but Ann advised me to go out and do some drawing in situ. Found it so much more exciting, I created shapes and colours that were unexpected and organic. Here are my first few attempts, drawn on location in Epping forest. Want to look at an artist that deals with nature in a kind of free and natural way, for inspiration, any suggestions?
Working with watercolours was a quick and easy way of applying colour to a large area, but when I got home I was glad of being able to use a wider range of materials such as ink to create a more intense line and shadow. Although I suppose the shadows weren't particularly strong when the mushrooms where in their natural habitat, under a desk light it's perhaps more prominent so wouldn't need to be represented with such harsh materials when I was actually in the forest.
I think the image that worked the most successfully is the second up from this description on the right hand side of the page. I particularly like this drawing because it gives me a sense of where the mushrooms where growing in relation to one another, I remember seeing them in sprouting in a way which gave a sense of space between each growth and wanted to represent that in a drawing, so continuous line was my choice, to show a flow between the forms.

2 comments:

  1. i like these a lot sophie, theres this more kinda land artist called chris drury and he did spore prints where he actuslly printed the spores of mushrooms onto paper by leaving mushrooms on paper in a hot place, but the prints still have the same sort of aesthetic as banharts line drawings. you might already know him so just ignore all that if you do. also are you going to see devendra, he plays on my birthday?

    chris

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  2. these are awesome!
    your very talented!(:

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