Exercise 3

Drawing on location

Use your sketchbooks to produce a series of drawings and notes that documents an event of your choice. Try and produce a body of work that depicts the event over a period of time.

From exercise 1 I did find that using my degree sketchbook was ok and going to work again for this exercise, I also spoke about using a black brush pen, which again I will use for this exercise too, it gave the right loose style that I wanted to achieve, and I felt that the drawing will gradually improve with practise.

This time though as I was working further a field I decided to take my pencil case too, which also had a Uni Pin fine line black 0.3 pen, incase I wanted to add more details, a biro for the annotations alongside the sketches, a pencil just incase I needed it, a rubber and a pencil sharper. I also took my small landscape moleskin sketchbook incase I wanted to sketch other things whilst being out and about.

This time although I have chosen a busy setting again there is much more space around, it’s out in the open and there are benches all along the sides, so I can sit down quietly and sketch what’s going on.

So I decided to go to a fun fair on Southend’s sea front in Essex, it took me about an hour to get there in the car, and although not an event in itself, it did match the advice for action, excitement and atmosphere.

Luckily it was a lovely sunny day, but it was really windy on the coast, so some people had coats and hats on and some with shorts! I was in layers so I covered all basses. I grabbed a coffee when I got to Southend then walked to the adventure park. I started sketching from a viewing platform as I got to the park before it opened, so I couldn’t actually go inside yet.

It helped me to loosen up and get the feel of the place first.

Adventure island finally opened, but I waited a bit longer before heading inside, so that people started to arrive and the rides started to get going, and there was an atmosphere about, so I just took a long stroll along the beach and back again.

Things where a lot harder to sketch inside as everything was so large and you had to look up all the time, it was pretty difficult!

This picture above was literally sketched in seconds, they were waiting at the top of the ride ready to fall down, so I had to sketch it in that moment, I couldn’t see all the details.

This sketch was done from a distance so I could get most of the ride in the drawing, I also used my Uni pin fine line 0.3 pen for this one, as I wanted to get a bit more detail and have a refined look. The people were hard to draw in this sketch as they kept moving or would disappear when I looked down at my sketchbook and up again.

Again this sketch was done from a little distance away but the two girls in the drawing were nearer so that’s why the perspective is slightly off.

This sketch made me laugh, they were all really screaming and I was trying to quickly draw them, but they do look slightly like Quentin Blake style figures, which made me smile.

A few smaller sketches from the day above, the carousel was really hard to draw as it was spinning too quickly to draw anything decent, so I waited until it stopped once, and drew this horse quickly.

This family group were just in front of me whilst I was sketching on a bench, and the little boy kept pulling faces at me, but I managed to sketch them as they didn’t move too much at that point.

This ride was really hard to draw as I was sitting sort of underneath it and it was spinning pretty quickly, but I gave it a go, the figures are not great but I think you get the feel of the ride.

I then found the dodgems and managed to sketch this mother and daughter on the ride, it was funny as they were fully wrapped up, but it was really windy in that spot as it was right on the edge of the sea. The mums face isn’t the greatest but she kept moving but it’s something to work on and practise more.

So overall it was again really challenging, I think it’s better to not get to places too early as I had to wait at both Ikea and Adventure island for things to get going and busy, to catch the atmosphere. I feel my drawings got slightly better on this exercise, I like the one where I used the Uni pin fine liner, and drew the whole of the roller coaster. Some of the perspectives were more challenging here, and the size of the rides I found difficult to draw. I’m glad I went it was defiantly an experience and has given me more confidence to draw out in public and in busy spaces.

I feel as though all my sketches could be used to make a large illustration drawing of Adventure island, so I think that has been what the outcome should have been, in regards to reportage illustration.