This lesson looked at techniques to create a sense of distance between objects through designing/creating a sense of relationship. The purpose of this was to give the drawings a greater sense of depth and space.
The lessons so far have been exploring composition through seeing a design as constructed in a number of layers i.e. foreground, mid-ground and background. I saw this lesson as introducing tools to design along a Z axis.
Location 1 – Polesden Lacey
I was an extremely hot day. I’d chosen the location because I knew there were several views that would work within the context of the brief.
The first exercise involved drawing a number of similar objects receding into the distance. The approach was to block these objects out as a single block first using a different colour, before adding individual objects.
Blue pencil marks are just visible in the larger drawing showing the blocking.
This helped me make design decisions such as the placement of objects, as well as emphasise the concept of near and far through the relative relationships of objects to one another.
The next exercise used this technique and combined it with mark making to strengthen the feeling of distance.
Polesden Lacey has a beautiful walled garden with many sculptural features, and wanted to use these as my key subjects.
The vegetation along the edge of the walled garden gave me the opportunity to use different marks to describe the plants depending on how close they were to the viewer. This added to the sense of the scene receding into the distance.
Location 2 – Patio and back garden
The final exercise was interesting in a way I hadn’t expected. The idea was to start the drawing by introducing a rectangle to represent the space upon which a couple of objects were placed. From the start this was an act of design rather than direct observation.
Other objects were then progressively added to give a sense of depth and distance.
What was interesting is how taking a design first approach gave me freedom to experiment with more ‘extreme’ compositions.
References
List of illustrations
Figure 1 – Hadfield, Hugh (2022) Thumbnails and developed drawing of the long walk, Polesden Lacey [Fountain pen] In possession of: The author
Figure 2 – Hadfield, Hugh (2022) Thumbnails for composition [Fountain pen] In possession of: The author
Figure 3 – Hadfield, Hugh (2022) Developed drawing of a view towards Polesden Lacey alongside the walled garden [Fountain pen] In possession of: The author
Figure 4 – Hadfield, Hugh (2022) Thumbnails and the first drawing of two objects occupying the same space [Fountain pen] In possession of: The author
Figure 5 – Hadfield, Hugh (2022) Developed drawing experimenting with more radical composition [Fountain pen] In possession of: The author
Illustration 