Visual Language: Look, Think and Draw on Location

Today I had my first Visual Language session drawing on location near to LCA and visiting a prosthetics exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute. I really faced my fears of observational drawing and gave it my best shot at attempting to capture people, landscapes, movement and static objects on display.

What worked well?

• I'm pleased with my ability to go outside my comfort zone drawing people and places on location.

• Using my iPad to capture an image and then draw from reference helped me tremendously to zoom in as much as possible and try to replicate that snapshot of movement.

• I brought along a wide range of drawing supplies from inks and brushes and graphite to charcoal sticks and fineliner pens. This spectrum of equipment allowed me to be playful in my approach to image making and drawing from life.

• I especially liked my simplistic drawing of a building with lots of cylinders attached, located inside the Leeds University campus. Reducing the shapes down to their simplest forms is something new for me and possible something I could explore more?

What could be improved?

• I've not done as much observational drawing as I would like, to be honest, and this is something I want to be able to get better at doing. Drawing from life is really important and even though I can barely see it may be interesting to draw what I can see? Which is blurry shapes and shadows. It wouldn't be accurate or representational in any way but could this be worth exploring? I must admit this is something I am very self conscious about and I have always strived to make my images as accurate as possible so that sighted people would accept them and be amazed at my ability to overcome my disability. Sharing what I can see is such a personal thing but could be worth investigating further with a future project?

• I need to stop 'overdoing' a drawing and take a step back, being happy with a thumbnail or quick 30 second sketch - rather than adding tonnes of details! I am on an illustration course, not Fine Art - and this is something I need to teach myself over the duration of the course.