After
the talk, we looked at ideas for generating drawings based on the Dada and Surrealist cut up techniques, and on drawing games like
Exquisite Corpse.
We wrote on pieces of paper the following categories and put them in a hat:
- A character - some examples were Lemmy, and a heavy metal loving old lady with a cat
- A place - eg Amsterdam, a garden centre
- An object - eg an analogue clock, an ancient engraved Turkish ring
- A situation - eg an awkward double date, a fire in a care home (!)
(Tip - it turns out that the more detailed the description, the better the inspiration for the drawing.)
Neal and Robert pulled one of each category out of the hat and pinned them by the large scale pieces of paper.
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| Amsterdam, bed, analog clock, awkward double date... |
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We were put into groups of 4 or 5 to get drawing.
Our first drawing was "Amsterdam, bed, (someone had written bed as a character, for some reason) Analogue clock, awkward double date."
We talked about what we would draw. You could also do small sketches before starting on the large scale drawing.
Sally did some nice drawings of buildings in Amsterdam. I found getting started tricky, especially working on such a large scale, and was amazed how the other girls in our group got cracking straight away.
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| Sketching in pencil to start |
Eventually I hit my stride with a sketch of Lionel Ritchie (the 80s power ballads playing in the background were clearly influencing our work. Plus we thought All Night Long was a good name for a motel in the red light district.)
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| Lionel. Grrr... |
After about 15 minutes, Neal and Robert asked the groups to rotate. This meant that eventually you worked on all the drawings. The idea was not to get too precious about your own drawing, and to work collaboratively.
We were encouraged to embellish, build upon and even change the drawings. At first it felt strange to be working on someone else's drawing but after a while we got into it.
After lunch we were given ink and brushes, and started to ink in the pencil work on each drawing. The work really started to come to life (and to look like an actual Le Gun drawing).
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| Fire in the care home... | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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The finished works...
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| Lemmy became the face of the train |
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| This was loosely based on the old woman who lived in a shoe |
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| Fire in the care home |
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| This one was based on the situation of a divorce, so loosely based in a courtroom |
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| Our 'Amsterdam' drawing by the end |
Sally and I thought the drawings were better without the grey midtones (like the fourth one down.)
It was a really fun day. They plan to hold more, and there might be a final exhibition in the Red Gallery, so watch this space...
Le Gun Art School, Class of 2014.
Neal and Robert sitting in the front row.
(spot the CLFA students hiding in the back... )
