TEXTILES: Drawing Workshop + Artist Research

I enjoy drawing people with interesting facial features. I follow a lot of models on social media, but not for just their aesthetics, but because most of them also aim to educate their audience about important things such as politics, mental health, and overall well-being. These people inspire me greatly. For e.g  Deba Hekmat (@d.3b4) who is a Kurdish 19-year-old model/activist who grew up in the UK (London)  "feeling conscious that the way she looked didn't fit the beauty standard" due to her very foreign facial features and own standards of what is considered beautiful.

(Dazed is a British style magazine founded in 1991. It covers music, fashion, film,art and literature.)

I am still not sure where this project will lead me, but all I know is that I want to celebrate diverse beauty and people who choose to be their full authentic selves. I will do this by practicing different types of drawings and the use of materials to achieve the outcome that I feel is right. 

I have just started to practice using watercolour properly and got some nice results. 

Watercolor + Mixed Media.

*Artists Work

Lucas David

Lucas is a Mexican multimedia artist known for his eerie portraits of models and musicians recognised by his 160K followers on Instagram and celebrities. Most of his art is done by watercolour, gouache and ink on paper. I love the use of the black fine lines in his pen work as sometimes portraits can be lost using watercolour due to its transparent nature. Personally, I think his work visually communicates the darker side of being a famous individual and it clearly represents his value for dark aesthetics. 

Overall, I like his art style as it's more illustrative like mine.

When I was looking for portrait images,  I came across a page full of beautiful illustrations by an artist that goes by ZHENYA Z. She is a successful woman in the art/fashion industry with many exhibitions: Acid Gallery, Haze Gallery, LFW, Loreal Paris and others. 

* Her media: Pastels.



The drawings are visually captivating, I love the amount of detail that goes on the model's face and the rest is simple like the outfits being drawn by singular lines using pastel on paper. I see that she uses different shades of the same colour palette which makes the drawing assimilate together better and make it pleasing on the eye. She uses a bit of mark-making that creates the shape of the body by adding little strokes. She inspires me to try pastel again and use different multimedia to get a new idea of how to visually communicate a drawing.

Frank Auerbach

Frank is a German-British painter. I chose to look at him due to his mark-making skills and to understand how to use lines to create an image that the viewer can understand as mark-making can be wild and sometimes very expressive. I really like his simple sketches of portraits and everyday life things like scenery and nature. It's the dark tone and depth of the subject that makes his work stand out and communicate his feelings well by using cool or warm tones.

Auerbach doesn't visualise a picture before he begins, and that's so important when it comes to marks and it's something I struggle with. I usually see the outcome in my head and draw it. That's something I'll really have to improve on.

2. Mark-making Exploration/ Drawing Studies

Materials used : Black acrylic paint, straw, cotton swab, sock, paint brush, bristle brush, cotton pad, end of a Sharpie pen, and a roller with string attached.

Pen with ruler drawing 5-10 mins.

Pencil on paper 2 mins.

Eyes closed 1 min.

Observational Drawing

Ink on paper 5-10 min.

First drawing done with brusho.

Second, graphite sketch.

Pastel drawing on brown paper approx.

1hr 30 mins.

4. Evaluation

So far I'm enjoying textiles as I'm doing more drawings than ever and I've come a long way when it comes to experimentation. I feel like I understand what is asked of me better.  

I also realised that I may like doing composition and collages more than ever, I think it's interesting to combine objects with drawings because it makes a completely new art piece by itself.  

Personally, I'm not a big fan of mark-making, however it is good to see what kind of textures you can produce by different media/objects. Overall, I want to do more portraits and add other elements such as paper cut outs, scraps, and jewellery.