Sketchbook Review

I have been talking about doing a sketchbook review for a while so here it is!!

I have scanned a few pages in from my sketchbook and I will explain what I have done on the page what I think has worked, what I like and dislike and how I could have improved!

I started my FMP on Tuesday 12th March as the day before I was so ill and did not feel well so I just rested for the day. On the Tuesday I was still not 100% therefore I decided that I would do some secondary research and watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age and draw from the film.

This is the first page in my sketchbook. I have created a fabric swatch drawing of the detail that was in the dress that I had drawn as I did not want to ruin a lovely continuous line drawing. I will admit it and say now that I DID pause the film so that I could see what it was and what angle I wanted to draw from. I have also along the bottom which you can not clearly see quoted part of the film from this scene that I found interesting/important and wanted to make a note of. The colour on this page has been created simply by using watercolours.

This again is a continuous line drawing from the film. I have mainly concentrated on the colour blue as it was a main feature in that scene. I feel as though there might be something missing from this page and unfortunately it is not the whole of the double spread as it would not fit on my scanner so I am sorry about that! I think I should have possibly added some form of text or a background or something else as it feels as though she is floating on the page and to me it feels slightly boring. 

 

This is one of my favourite pages that I have created! I have used this image in my CAD mood boards which I posted about, if you have not seen that post then <Click Here>. I think that the yellow is really bright and vibrant and I just really like the way that I have set everything out on this page and the pattern which is on the left of the page was an over head shot in the film that I really liked. This page really pops out and is very much a stand alone page. Although there is a lot of information on my page, I think that it is nicely set out my the use of the yellow shade. Queen Elizabeth is in painted in a brighter harsher yellow and the pattern is placed on a more washed out yellow. This is purely due to the fact that my paint brush was not large enough to fill the page the way that it should have and it leaves this nice wash out/ streaky background.

This page is also another image that I used for my CAD mood boards. I decided that this page was right for my 'Ice Royal' colour scheme spread as it is all blue and white with slight colour. I really like the way that the ink has run in this image and how the lines look soft but with shading.

*This technique is really simple but effective, to do this you will need an inky ball point pen, a paint brush and pot of water. Firstly draw you image like you would any other, using a wet paint brush with ONLY water (be generous) you paint along the lines. Quickly after doing this you get your pen and draw over the line below, the ink will then blend with the water but still show your line below. Repeat this until you are happy with the way it looks. I will also put up a demonstration tomorrow :)*

I really like the layering of this page. This page originally only had the smaller drawing on it, however I felt that there was something missing and later on in the film Queen Elizabeth was wearing another blue garment so i made it seem as though this was the main feature image and added more violet and blue into the water colouring.

On Wednesday 13th March I went to London with my friend which I have previously posted about, <Click here to go to that page> While I was there I took advantage of all the primary research that was around me. I loved that day although it was rather hectic and I had to take my medicine with me... BOOOOOO!

These pages are a lot quieter then the ones above from the film that I watched, however I have not used a lot of watercolour and I have concentrated on just line, tonal, dotty drawings. I tried to incorporate all the skills that we learnt in the first term of this course.

This is all that I am going to show for now as I do not want to bore you and I have missed a few pages out so I shall try and get that done for tomorrow.

So either Good Morning, Good Afternoon or like me Good Night 

Melanie Katelin

xo

This Week: FMP

Wednesday 6th March ( I know its not this week!)

I went into college today to decide what I will do as my Final Major Project Topic. I sat with my tutor and unfortunately it was not easy to decide which was best suited for me, therefore I did more research and decided that I would be able to find more resources and information about the Tudors and that I would more than likely prefer this topic idea. When I was younger I loved loved loved Queen Elizabeth 1 and the stories of Henry VIII and his six wives, so in a way it is really fun and exciting to bring my childhood memories into this project.

Monday 11th March

So so so ill! I spent today just sleeping and got nothing done at all! Such a shame.

Tuesday 12th March

I went into college for 1 hour to speak to my tutor and then came home and drew from Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I managed to get a lot of information from this film and some really nice sketchbook pages that I have taken a lot of time over (I was told to slow down and take more care!) and I believe that it has really paid off.

Wednesday 13th March

I went to London today with my friend Megan, it was really fun and we found a lot of primary research with is AMAZING!!

We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum where we went to see the Treasures of the Royal Courts exhibition which I found rather disappointing and although this is mainly due to the fact that I was not allowed to spend time in the room and draw from the exhibition and also because I had personally thought that there were going to be crowns and jewels, however I did see Henry VIII's Armour which was pretty cool! (boy was he fat by the way! and short, haha).

After the exhibition we went to the Fashion area of the museum which was so much fun we spent 2 hours in about a quarter of the room! hahaha so bad but the garments were beautiful! There was one which I loved from 1755-60 which was the Court Mantua (imaged below) which was so beautiful and detailed and I think I spent a whole hour just studying this garment!

I also really liked the menswear from around about 1790 and their bows! LOVED THE BOWS!  (pictured below)

Afterwards we went to the Natural History Museum across the road and saw the dinosaurs purely for fun and went to see all the stuffed animals which was research before heading over to Somerset House.

Now I was really disappointed by Somerset House when I read the website it has a whole section called 'The Tudor Palace' which I read and found out that Princess Elizabeth 1 lived there when she was younger and I assumed that the would be rooms set up in that sort of style. I got told that there were two but you had to book to see them! :( But on the plus side there was a Wool House Exhibition which was fantastic and really interesting! Loved all the rooms and the colab with Alexander McQueen for a beautiful wall hanging!

18th Century Fashion V&A

18th Century Fashion V&A

Thursday 14th March

I drew from Elizabeth: The Golden Age (finished the film off) and The Other Boleyn Girl.

Friday 15th March

I was going to go to Wollaton Hall, however my tutor said it would be nice if I did some secondary research. So I went to the library got loads of magazines and Tudor fashion and history books which are at home right now!! I also did a few sketchbook pages and came up with the title for my FMP (what do you think)

Divorced Beheaded Died Divorced Beheaded Survived

Simple and rather long but it rhymes and I think is quite catchy and it just fits in with the whole era.

FMP UPDATE

FINAL MAJOR PROJECT.

Thought that I would post a little update on how the progression for my FMP is going. Today I had to have a talk with my tutor and we decided which of my three mood boards had the best idea for the production of my collection for the end of my Foundation in Art and Design. 

I had three topic ideas:

• Tudors/Elizabethan Era
• Fairy Tale
• Science

I was going to show you my mood boards unfortunately my scanner is not working so I will have to upload it another time, I will try to do it ASAP!!

Now normally it's really easy to decide which is the right topic idea for each person by the idea which excited them the most. However, I had to be difficult and decided that I really really really wanted to do both the Tudors/Elizabethan and the Fairy Tale idea. This then lead to me having to carry on researching and putting the pros and cons to each project so that I could decide which would be the most interesting and fun to do.

By the end of about an hour of debating with myself I decided with the help of my tutor that it would be best if I did the Tudors/Elizabethan Era idea as there was a lot more that I can do for it and there is a lot more that I can use as Primary research (VERY IMPORTANT!!) as well as Secondary. 

Next Wednesday, I am going to London with my friend from college and we are going to go to:

• Victoria and Albert Museum
• Natural History Museum
• Somerset House
• Whatever there's time left to do!!

Now currently at the V&A, there is a Treasures of the Royal Courts Exhibition which I will be visiting which has treasures from Queen Elizabeth 1st and her father King Henry 8th, so I should get a lot of visual primary research done in my first week. Also a fact that I read earlier was that Queen Elizabeth 1 lived at Somerset House as a Princess until she became Queen. 

I'm about to start my plan for the next 8weeks of my life! 

Wish me LUCK!

xo

FMP

Arrrrr!! Just been told that we really don't have long for our final major project and that it is starting in two weeks!! I have to do 3 mood board ideas and make a plan and proposal!

But on the exciting news of this my friend and I have just booked tickets to go to London to do research for the first week so that is totally exciting!! Cannot wait and we are going to make a strict plan of where were going and for how long!! I will keep you listed on updates of my FMP!!