Digitised Figures

This task began with completing a series of figure drawings – specifically eight one-minute gesture drawings, three contour drawings, and one 20 minute long-pose drawing – using a multitude of sculptures and photographs of models as references. Following this, we had to digitise our drawings in Illustrator using the pen tools, shape tools, direct selection tool, and the pathfinder panel or shape builder tool, and then create two compositions from the resulting images, one using our gesture drawings and the other using our contour or long-pose drawings.

Process and Ideation

The process of creating this work began with creating figure drawings from the given set of references. Our references for our gesture drawings were a series of Degas sculptures, whereas for our contour drawings we used Greek / Roman statues, and finally for the long-pose drawing, we made use of a photograph of a model. After selecting which references to use, I created the following drawings.

After this, I imported my gesture and contour drawings into Illustrator and traced them using the tools listed in the task description as shown below.

After completing this process, I realised I really liked how the “shape” tracings of the gesture drawings looked, so I decided to integrate them into my final work. Consequently, I selected a few figures to work with and created the following draft for my first composition. This draft contains the placement of figures that I would use in my final work, as well as the colour scheme for each figure.

 

After tracing my contour drawings, I decided to make a more abstract work out of them compared to the more literal one I planned to create out of the gesture drawings. Therefore, inspired by statue gardens and how the different forms of each statue interact with each other as well as the organic environment, I created the following draft composition along with some other shapes and patterns that I would use in my final piece.

Final Work

Below are images of my final works:

Being a dancer and observing these poses together, I felt as if they were collectively reminiscent of different poses a dancer would employ in a choreography. Therefore in putting together each image, I used shapes that symbolised the “feel” and “flow” of each movement. For example the figure on the extreme left to me seemed like they were about to begin some sort of spin, possibly like a fouetté in ballet, therefore I used a winding path of variably sized ellipses to emphasise the fluidity of this motion; whereas in the second figure from the right, there seems to be a sort of directional rigidity in the movement, therefore I used the symbol of thick raindrops falling downward at an angle to underscore the heaviness of this pose.

In this work, as mentioned above, I was inspired by statue gardens and the blooming nature that surrounds the figures in them. Therefore, in composing this piece, I wanted to make use of more abstract imagery (like dots and marquise shapes) to convey the visuals as well as the atmosphere of these spaces.

Challenges and Surprises

A challenge I faced in completing this project was identifying cohesive colour schemes, especially for the first work. I think I often tend to use more minimalist colour palettes that contain only around four to five colours, but for this project I really wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and experiment with colour more. Therefore, in my first piece in particular, I attempted to use a number of vibrant colours that conveyed the sense of energy and action I had in mind. However, despite being quite an interesting process, playing around with different colours in each figure, it was undoubtedly a more challenging process to identify a set of colours that worked well together and in sequence.

A surprise I encountered was how much I enjoyed the process of drawing all the figures. Usually figure drawing is not a process I enjoy very much as it can be quite frustrating when my drawing doesn’t match the references I am using, however creating these quick gesture drawings especially felt quite liberating and I really found it quite engaging to challenge myself to go with the flow and try to emulate the movement of the sculptures we used as references, rather than nitpicking on specific details. I think this assignment has really made me realise that figure drawing is something I would like to do more of in the future!

Reflection

Overall, this project was one I definitely enjoyed and learnt a lot from, both in terms of my drawing skills as well as using Illustrator to translate them into digital pieces. I also feel like gaining these skills has shown me that there are a lot more possibilities and methods at my disposal to fully realise the creative potential of different ideas I may have in the future. Apart from this I also learned a very valuable lesson while working on the Illustrator segment of this project.

I had spent a whole day tracing my figures and creating my compositions, when suddenly, out of the blue, the Illustrator application on my laptop crashed and I lost all of my work. I had forgotten to intermittently save my file, and the auto-recover feature didn’t manage to save anything either, so I had lost an entire day’s worth of progress in a matter of seconds, and I was left with no choice but to redo all of my work. This definitely taught me the importance of always, always saving my work, and of making backups of every file that I create.

Connection to Creative Practice

I think this work relates most significantly to my creative practice as I make significant use of solid colours and patterns in Digitised Figures (Gesture), which I have done often in previous works, such as my Bridge Project 2 task, from Integrative Studio + Seminar 1, and again experimented with varying degrees of opacity as in my work titled Backpack Project in Digitised Figures (Contour). All of these elements are recurring in my creative practice, therefore these two works definitely embody the visual aesthetic that I prefer.

Work from:
Drawing + Imaging with Professor Josephine Vargas