Some of my preliminary concepts. From the outset, I had a pretty clear idea about where I was going, I just wasn’t sure how to get there.
Further experimentation with charcoal, water and soft pastels.
Within this final in-class experiment, I nailed a scumbly aesthetic with soft pastel that felt like a good fit for my concept.
With a firm idea about the technique that I wanted to focus on, I was able to develop an initial concept for background (A2). Use of two distinct techniques for mark-making using scumble line and shading (soft pastel)
Closeup of scumbling technique showing the generation of uneven, circular marks made by randomly rotating soft pastel.
Charcoal overlay worked into the scene to tone the paper, desaturate the purple & blue hues. The use of charcoal also helps to visually unite the sky & land.
Initial character sketch. The purpose of this person is to not only give the viewer something to relate to in the landscape, but also to address the ‘Unlikely’ thematic element. Juxtaposing a smiling, happy-looking soldier painting an imagined landscape – one that mirrors an idealised version of the devastated, muddy background – is an unlikely mixture.
Completed character: Brush & Black ink (with water to dilute and generate grayscale). Canvas scene painted with watercolour.
From a metaphoric point of view, the idea of creativity in the midst of destruction has always intrigued me (reflect on the works of traditional ‘war art’ e.g., Streeton, Wheeler, Lambert, Drysdale, Tom Roberts etc). Through the mechanism of an imagined landscape, the motive is to allude to the soldier’s desire to return to the normality.
Experimental composition #2: Using ballpoint pen and gestural line to develop a more refined composition with a landscape orientation. In this second version, the viewpoint has changed, as has the position of the soldier. Additionally, new elements have been added into the landscape to help unite the composition.
Refined sketch transferred to A2 canvas
Closeup of the new composition
Blocking in base colours with watercolur
Laying in soft pastel values for the smoky basecoat
Time to experiment with mark-making with a variety of media including: soft pastel, soft pastel + water; watercolour, salt and tea…
Yes, tea. When reflecting on notions underpinning the First World War, my thoughts turned to the sense of empire and associated trappings. Strangely, tea sprung to mind. Tea would be applied to generate visual textures in the areas of mud, and would be mixed with the colours selected for the soldier’s uniform. The rationale behind this choice stemmed from tea also being a source of comfort for soldiers in the trenches. A little touch of home, if you will.
Closeup of tea droplets hand-squeezed from the teagbags to create randomised textural elements.
Salt crystals were also sprinkled across areas areas of damp watercolour and tea to help generate additional textures to generate visual interest.
Part of my experimentation involved mixing water with soft pastels, resulting in a somewhat dilute (albeit granular) watercolour.
Tissue paper and paintbrushes were also used to investigate different ways to apply pastels to the roughly textured 300GSM watercolour paper that I’ve selected.
Using pastels to block in sky values, whilst carefully avoiding the soldier. A charcoal eraser was used to support this endeavour.
I’ve always handed a soft spot for pen & ink, and felt that it had to play a role in the work. After all, I’d used it in my original test images but hadn’t been able to integrate the pen & ink rendering of the first character and my scumbly landscape.
Soft pastels were laid down before pen & ink was applied over the top. This proved problematic in some areas. The underpinning intent being to capture a vintage newspaper illustration style aesthetic. My wife suggested that it reminded her more of a children’s storybook approach. “You wouldn’t hang on a wall, but it’d look great in a book”.
Closeup of less-refined gestural pen & ink linework used to support elements in the terrain including artillery shell casings, mud…
Patterns on the shapes of dead, blackened trees (integrating one of the sketching activities that we did in one of the classes). IN this image, the scumbly lines (used in the first piece) can be seen in the sky and earth.
Closeup of the soldiers head & sky showcasing the contrast between character and skyline, the ink linework, tea / paint mixture, and use of repetitive scumbly linework in the sky.
Still a fair bit to go in the groundwork. I want to deepen the tones in the lower right to improve the overall sense of unity between sky and ground as they don’t gel sufficiently at this point. I will likely extend and refine my scumbly linework as per my initial experiments. Although I have used scumbling in the design, it is used far more delicately than I had initially proposed. As such, I think there is scope to revisit it.
There is a reasonable sense of balance brought about through the positioning of the soldier and the burnt trees. I’ve used the smoke, flowing right to left, to also draw the viewer’s eye across the composition.
Additionally, I will be extending the canvas past A2 by reusing some of my initial composition to extend the smoky clouds out of the top left of the page. I’m also developing a separate gas mask that can be placed over the face of the soldier, as this worked quite well on some of my earlier test pieces. I will view it in context and glue into place if I feel that it adds value to the overall design.
Reworked version showing integration of additional scumbling and deepening of foreground values.
Closeup of foreground detail.
