Set, Series, Sequence: Part Two

For my second part of my brief, I was asked to choose one of my most successful drawings and develop it, producing a series of 8 images that consider line, mark, media, tone, etc. I was unsure which to choose as there were a few drawings that I was fond of, so to help make my decision I thought about which would be the easiest to create a narrative with. This ruled out my flights of stairs, so I was really just focusing on the creatures I had drawn. I.E. my bees and birds.

I went with the bees, because bees.

My Bees

For this part of the task, I wanted to draw a combination of "cartoon" bees and realistic ones, and use a range of photographs to draw from, so I could capture the subject from different angles. Whilst doing this I wanted to use a variety of different media, not just because the brief had told me to, but because I'm getting too comfortable with using pens to complete my drawings, and nine times out of ten I will go to use the pen without even considering other media, which is a mindset I want to snap out of. 

(1) I started out with fine-liners as I wanted to focus on the size of the bee, and breakout of sticking to small scales. I wanted to try and take up as much of the A4 space as I could, as the first part of the brief had been limiting me to A5, and it has been a while since I have worked on larger scale than this. Granted A4 isn't that big, but it definitely makes a change from creating small, "delicate" drawings. 

(2) In my second drawing, I have used a variety of different thickness of fine-liner, to see what this does for the design of my character. It definitely makes the character bolder, but the thicker pen seems to give the bee more of a "fuzzy" texture, which I quite like for the character. 

(3) I then moved on to using coloured pencil. It has been a LONG time since I have used them so I wasn't really expecting anything good to be produced, but I have pleasantly surprised myself. I really like how the colour and the strokes I have used has made the bee look quite lifelike, especially in the fur of the bee. I actually prefer this fuzzy texture over the one I was able to produce with the fine-liner, which is a bonus. Maybe this will make me using coloured pencil more often. 

(4)&(5) Considering I was successful with my coloured pencil, I decided to continue using colour but this time I took to watercolours. Other than some of the birds I drew in the first half of the brief, it has been a while since I have used watercolours, so yet again I wasn't expecting anything great, and once again I have surprised myself. I really like these bees. Granted not as much as the coloured pencil, but I like how I was able to create a different texture using them, and it was much quicker for me to do. I also really like the wings I have produced in (5), to me they actually make the bee look like it is flying/hovering, and I like the delicacy of them. 

(6) I returned to using fine-liner as I was getting slight withdrawal symptoms, but this time I was focusing on the different types of bees. Here I have drawn a Queen bee and have represented this by giving her a crown. So original, I know. 

I also wanted to take a break from drawing realistic bees, and so I exaggerated the shape of the bee's body, similarly to what I did in the first half of the brief, and also gave the bee human characteristics by making it stand upright on two legs, and have its arms waving in the air as if the character was angry. I really like the result, and think this bee would be a great subject to animate, or introduce a narrative to.

(7)&(8) I returned to using colour one last time, but this time used Oil Pastel. I really like how the bees are bold and seem to be quite furry from the texture of the Oil Pastels, but I don't like how I felt that I didn't really have control over the media due to the pastels being quite thick. This made it incredibly awkward for me to include minor details, so the design looks quite basic. Maybe if I was working on a larger scale this media would be more suitable to use, but not for a small sketchbook like this. 

To conclude, I've really enjoyed this part of the brief and how I have been able to explore different media. I'm thinking of developing (6) further and creating a narrative using this character, but I think it would be nice to introduce some colour to it, as I feel I have been quite successful with using it.