Exercise 4

For this exercise I set up a group of objects which included: two Japanese tea cannisters of differing heights; a wooden Japanese doll and a Sayonara doll. I liked the differing heights, colours and patterns but they all had similar cylindrical shapes which unified them.

I looked at the arrangement through a viewfinder and considered which arrangements to sketch.

Firstly I drew a sketch showing the shapes of the objects and how they related to each other in black pen and simple shaded background.

Then I zoomed in and sketched the tops of each shape only, this time showing some detailing and later adding colour using coloured pencils.

Thirdly I zoomed in further, closing in on just the faces of the two dolls and concentrated on the negative space between the dolls which I filled in with solid black felt pen.

I then looked at a simple arrangement of the objects lined up to see how the heights related to each other and  then used this sketch to complete a simple collage of the four items in a line, using Japanese papers.

For my final piece I decided to complete a collage showing the four grouped items. I tried to emphasise the relative shapes and sizes of the objects.

This was an interesting and enjoyable exercise, demonstrating the many ways this simple arrangement could be viewed.