Drawing... a review on Van Gogh

Again long time no blog.....but am back for a brand new year. HAPPY NEW YEAR BY THE WAY! 

I decided to look at Van Gogh for Drawing from observation as I wanted to look into Van Gogh's personal stippling/pointillism technique. Having looked at pointillism in the Fine Art unit I was fascinated how individual marks can make quite a detailed image. and how colour and condensation of marks come together to make tones and shades and 3d looking images. Van Gogh's style I think is known to everyone who studies art. I wanted to challenge myself to have a go and make sure I paid attention and observed for every mark. Feel this technique will help me look more at the object and distinguish what kind of mark I should make. I decide to look at the image I did so I could get more in tune with my perspective side which was the RULE in Graphic Communication at High School, as perspective plays an important part in his work finding out he used a perspective frame and all. Plus it uses his own personalized stippling technique with lots of different types of marks being made on the paper. So I would get to have a go at a range of marks. Thank god i was already familiar with the rules and guides of perspective or I fell this could of ended up starting a lot worse.

I started by pencil-ing in the outline of all forms just so I could get the basics of the image down so I knew what I was doing, makes the task seem broken up more as I'm doing each bit separately  as at first glance it looks like a mammoth task to get al the marks in.

This is my first go, have to say this was hard to do, especially the shrub area of the image,, think the perspective here is quite off ad the top of the houses don't go towards the vanishing point of the rest of the image. To get the thought of perspective i tried to darken colours as they went away from you. The lines are too thick as well in the distance, but I didn't change this until later on as you'll see.

Feel the perspective on the houses is much better but the roof s aesthetic isn't working definitely need to work on these areas, also the path area feel as though its too flat, need to work on the roughness of this. and make it seem more 3D. The thinner lines starting behind the first hut i feel like it's too much thinner lines need to work out which is better to get that detail in for perspective.

In this one i forgot to be honest to switch to a thinner pen that's why its a bolder pen all over. I feel like the first three huts should be in the thicker pen as you can see abit more detail in them, but the huts behind need to be in thin pen! to get that illusion of perspective as things are going away from view. 

Here i tried out using the thicker pen in the foreground and thinner pen in the distance here, feel this works out really well The path area could still do with some work, in the image before the marks were quite far apart and that gave a sense of closeness maybe i should squeeze together the marks to get that feeling of them being further away. Also the chimneys! Where's the smoke that's in the original?

There we go the scene looks abit more lived in here. The squeezed together mark certainly give some definition to the path, need to get the smaller though in the distance, but with these pens it quite difficult as they have turned blunt.... oh dear! The roof on that first thatched roof is really hard to do, feel like its getting better but its really hard to get the same effect as Van Gogh.

Feel as though the smoke here is too done, need to work on this maybe go lighter on the pen marking Annie, the thatched roof on the first house does not work here feel as though its a completely different shape to the rest of the house and i don't know how to fix it! Ah.... hoping it fixes out itself!

Tried to make the smoke marks here less defined and certainly gives the smoke more of a light smoke look, feel as though its has been abit squished here. Need to add the thicker lines in the first three houses again went abit over the top of the thin liner. Feel as though the path has more volume and definition the way i feel works here!

Sort of turned the first hut into a circle, thought this might solve the problem of perspective on the thatched roof.. but its just to far away from the original. Became abit stretched out here as well, as the distance isn't that much smaller than the forefront. Also the perspective of the third huts roof is just rubbish! 

Thats better, feel like its coming together abit more on this one. The roof still isn't at its best but its better than the first one, need to get that second hut taller though as it is further foward than the one behind. 

Here is my final go at Van Gogh's own stippling drawing, feel as though i have improved even though there's a long way to go certainly anyway, feel like it helps you break up colour and tone and shade and think about the basics of PERSPECTIVE! as its all around us but isn't highlighted nearly as much than in this one, definitely makes you think of distance and the perspective of the land, and how things fit together, also helped me break up maybe an image that i would of in the past found 'impossible' and work at areas that make up the image and bring parts of the image together to provide a final set up. Makes it seem less scary. That roof though... not my best!

Thank for reading :)
Annie x