Yesterday was the third and final session of this term’s Observation to Abstraction series, taught by Ella Clocksin. If you click on the image above, you can view it larger on Flickr and also see the individual sketches.

As always, we started with some drawing exercises based on the plant material and containers Ella had set up on the desks in front of us. I started off with a graphite stick and we worked at different speeds, dropping to a snail’s pace for the second one (after free choice to begin with) and then gradually getting faster. We also considered how we held the drawing implement, being encouraged to explore the end opposite the tip and break out of the tightness engendered by years of using a writing grip with pen shaped objects.

For the final couple of exercises, we taped two sheets together and I switched to a Sharpie marker. By this point, I was really going at quite a pace and trying to turn the corners without backtracking. I think there is a definite procession in fluency. Lesson: when working on exercises, don’t be content with just doing them once but, playing with the parameters, run through them again and again.