Pro. 3, Ex. 1 – Quick Sketches Around the House

What I’ve realised most of all from this exercise is that my house is a really boring subject to draw. Because it was only built a year ago it’s very clinical and plain, every wall is white and all the flooring pretty much the same colour. We’ve added to the plainness by choosing furniture to match – it all looks a bit like an Ikea showroom! While I like this look from an interior design perspective, it has made finding interesting angles to draw rooms from quite difficult. I guess in one way that has made me look harder than I would have had to if I wasn’t all so uninspiring.

In some rooms I’ve focused on a small area (like the top right picture in my son’s bedroom) because that was the most interesting part of that corner of the room. I also had to include him in one drawing as he wouldn’t move from his computer. The shed was probably the most exciting place to draw but there’s not really room to move in there which made finding another angle to draw from pretty hard. Likewise the hall had some nice areas, the stairs and banister create really nice abstract lines and I enjoyed drawing the messy shoe rack from above.

For some images I used a viewfinder to help choose a good composition. I experimented with drawing at an angle in my bedroom and also laying down on the bed looking up at the wardrobes (which was a really difficult position to draw in). I drew the bathroom sink standing on the edge of the bath looking down which was also rather challenging. For this exercise I used: pencil, charcoal, chalks, oil pastels, coloured pencil, biro and felt tip pen. Overall I think the living room drawing in felt tip was one of my favourites; because the house is quite open plan, you can see though to the kitchen and then through again to the garden and shed. It looks a bit like a Russian doll – each room within the next getting smaller. Also the one blast of colour I have in the house is the rug in the living room and I think I should explore getting that into a drawing at a later date. Other sketches that feel successful are my son’s un-made bed (slight nod to Tracey Emin there) and the two charcoal drawings. Charcoal is my favourite media to do quick sketches in as you can add a lot to a drawing in a short space of time and it feels very free, however I don’t think I want to use it in a bigger, more accurate drawing yet. Coloured pencil gave a nice effect and worked well for the top right image, it could be one to explore further in following exercises.