GEMMA CORRELL

Gemma Corrells - Daily Diary

Gorgeous illustrations which are uploaded regularly. I cant seem to find any contact information to ask the Correll whether i can put her images up on here - so use the link about to look at her work. Each piece is like looking at a page in a diary, there is something endearing and naive about the illustrations. It could possibly be the way they the images have been drawn in a more child like simplistic technique and the sweet stylised writing font. She has a very limited colour pallet and sticks to black and red but all the same, its eye catching and visually interesting. They lay out look rather natural but i can imagine a lot of thought and time has gone into designing each page.

Other images of Gemma Corrells work you may recognise:

Life Drawing 3/12/12

Veselina Dashinova, a graduate from the Royal College of Art came and visited Farnham UCA  to do a life drawing class. Unlike most life drawing classes this was a full day which was really exciting. We started the class by doing some scribbles on a page just to get us warmed up and ready for different exercises. My page was just plain scribbles that seemed to follow a floral theme. Nothing particularly interesting. 

Our first task was to split our A3 page into 6 boxes and create quick 1 minute drawings of the model (whom we used in our previous life drawing classes). These were kind of carrying on with the warm up exercise, i used a HB pencil which doesn't particularly create dark markings, how ever i think the main aim of the task was to try and get the shape, angles and movement of the model. They are nothing particularly special, and i don't like how they are so light and vague with the line work. They need a bit more definition and also it would look better with more confident line work.

The next task was rather similar, we split two pieces paper into 6 sections and did some more quick drawings like before. However, i still thought that the first 6 drawings needed something else, they were very vague and were so rough and quick they could look good with another layer. So instead of using the other piece of paper i draw on top of the drawings, it worked really well. It created loads of interesting markings and you can also see all of the drawings, it creates depth of field and a sense of form. I prefer it much more to the first 6 drawings.

The next task was to fold a A3 piece of paper as much as you can, once we had done this we started drawing on the paper, and then we unfolded it once, drew again, and so on until we had the whole piece opened. The aim of this task was to get used to working on different formats, we need to be versatile as animators and be able to work quickly with what we are given. I did enjoy it, it made me realise that i do struggle to work on a smaller scale, the drawings aren't too bad, but its interesting to see a change in quality of drawing as the paper size gets bigger, would be good to practice this more when i am doing tasks for Animation principles, for instance, designing a character, this would let me see if i would be able to animate my characters in all different size formats.

After our break we came back to do a non looking line drawing of the model, we were given a time frame of 10 minutes to look at the model carefully and make delicate thought over lines on the paper. This is a task that i have been doing since i did it in my foundation year, its a really good as it forces you to draw what you eyes see's rather then what you brain thinks it sees and what would look right. My drawing is a little disturbing with character, the model is very hunched and frail looking. Im surprised by how much the drawing is I'm proportion - I'm actually really happy with it. When i was drawing it i tired to redraw over what i had drawn to try and draw as much information as i could to get a feel for the shape and movement of the models body. The over sized head, hands and feet create a feeling of weight and heaviness.

After the non-looking line drawing, Veselina wanted us to contrast the drawing by giving us a 15 minute observational task where we had to carefully draw everything we saw, we had to use a variation of different mediums, pencil, chalk, charcoal, and build up a almost textured drawing. I felt much ore confident doing this kind of drawing to the previous one as you have more control with what you come our with at the ending. However, i think i could have done a better job on the hands and feet but due to the time frame and the way i drew the model i ran out of room. If i could go back i would draw is at horizontal view rather then a landscape view.

These two drawings are similar to the previous pencil, and charcoal drawings however we had 10 minutes to draw the one on the left and then 5 minutes for the drawing to the right.

The next task was really interesting, we had 2 minutes to look at the model in detail so we could get a real feel for the curves and movement in the models body.  We we told to split the page into two and then did a 5 minute not looking line drawing to the right of the page which was good fun, it didn't turn out quite as good as the previous non-looking line drawing though. Too the left of the first drawing we did a 5minute looking drawing. I must say, i almost prefer the right one where i didnt look at the model, I really like the face, it actually looks like a person, i probably concentrated on the face and neglected the rest of the body too much, next time i will concentrate on the whole of the body as well as the face, as the head is so much bigger then the body.

Another comparison drawing, the left looking and the right, non-looking.

The last task, was to create two 10 minute drawings drawings charcoal and pencil, we were told to try and make the model look three-dimensional so i made line markings to show where the body curves and the contours of the body. I actually really enjoyed this because i used more charcoal then i have used on the previous drawings, creating more contrast and making it more eye catching! 



Overall i really enjoyed myself, i learnt a lot and i feel like after the lesson i was much more relaxed with my approach to drawing. I felt more fluid with the movement with my wrists and i felt there was an improvement with my proportions too. One thing i will bare in mind for next week is i will bring more mediums where i can get a stronger contrast like the charcoal. Maybe i could bring some acrylic paint as it dries quickly, or some oil pastels.