Sketchbook seminar

We had a talk on the importance of using our sketchbooks as a place to explore ideas and imagery. Recording ideas and creating personal drawings will feed into college work and help with the development of my own tone of voice. The purpose is to draw and not to worry about creating final pieces of illustration. I like the idea of not having to censor myself, because I often worry too much about creating something I'm proud of - occasionally making drawing a stressful and discouraging experience. I have realised that I need to become more active in drawing and that it is repetition, experimentation and not worrying about making mistakes that will really help me improve. This is the approach I will be taking, especially into visual language as we explore new media and different ways of drawing.

In this session we were given the task of choosing from a list of subjects and creating 4 pages of drawings inspired by what we had selected - drawing from reference, creating characters...
I choose 'Rainforest's and Indigenous tribes', as indigenous cultures is something that I am interested in and would like to research. I was also excited by the potential for character, colour and pattern that I could bring into my work, inspired by the traditional dress and customs of indigenous cultures.

When creating these 4 sketchbook pages I initially started with charcoal portraits and recording the shape and patterns in some of the traditional dress. As a progressed, however, I became more interested in constructing characters inspired by the patterns and jewellery of indigenous tribe's traditional dress. Unlike the initial drawings I did, I felt like when creating these characters I was more free and relaxed with my drawing. I was thinking less about the final result and was just doing it, yet I still felt I was striving towards something. I was not completely happy with the final result, however in the seminar I got quite a positive reaction from this work...so I think I should probably just continue to let go and draw like this more often.