This exercise ended up being trickier than I had first hoped as multiple mishaps occurred. In writing this exercise up, I have decided to embrace them and utilise them in their own way. All-in-all, I had three takes at the exercise which I will go through now.
Take One
The first attempt stumbled almost immediately. We went out for a long family walk to help celebrate my wife's birthday. On leaving town in the car, I realised that in getting other aspects prepared, I had forgotten my sketchbook and pen at home.
So as not to be deterred, I decided to try and attempt the exercise using my phone.
I found doing it this way easy, and accessible - it was certainly easy to think about composition when taking the photographs. The instant nature of the photos also meant that I was able to take a much larger number of images compared to the next two attempts.
Take Two
The next day, we went out again, this time to fly a kite from the top of Butser Hill in Hampshire as part of celebrating my son's imminent birthday. We also had the opportunity to catch up with some family friends in a safe and socially-distanced manner.
Leaving the house, I felt rushed trying to get sketches in as we also prepared to leave, and my sketches show that. When we arrived at our destination, our friends were delayed even more than us, so I had a chance to create a more detailed sketch sitting in the car.
What we hadn't anticipated was the sudden change in weather that day. Extreme winds had taken hold and were magnified at the high altitude of the hill. It ended up being almost impossible to fly the kite safely, and even harder to make any sketches. I couldn't even feel my fingers by the end of our walk.
Take Three
A few days later, I resolved to attempt the exercise again. With a few days to myself, I decided to take myself to the south coast to try and relax and focus on my mental wellbeing. I was able to prepare more consistently and took the time to factor that preparation into my sketches.
All was going well with the exercise, and I was thoroughly enjoying the surprisingly warm weather and seaside environment. It was then when another mishap occurred! Suddenly my fountain pen dried up - in all the preparations I hadn't factored in refilling the cartridge adapter! Luckily, I had thrown a blue pencil into my sketch bag as an afterthought; I was extremely grateful that I had!
I continued my sketches as I walked along the pedestrian pathway, and I was interested to note the different marks that I was able to make with the pencil, it actually worked better in many regards to work more quickly.
Putting Things Together
At home, I scanned in all of the sketches, and then using my computer arranged the sketches into the 9-panel format asked in the exercise instructions. I also decided to do this with the selection of images I had taken as well, to create a kind of silent "fumetti" comic.
I think the photo comic actually works well, and I can get a sense of the journey and sequence. Positioning the photos into the grid also helped me tweak the compositions to help tell the 'story' of the journey.
The second grid naturally doesn't flow as well as there are only seven images. However, there is still a fairly good narrative to the sequence. What I particularly like are panels four to six: coincidentally, the drawings seem to connect together, almost as a triptych of a larger image.
Despite the change in the medium for the final attempt, I really like it. There was a greater opportunity to vary the viewpoints as well as the subject matter along the way, and I think this makes it more visually interesting. I miscounted my sketches, so ended up only doing 16 sketches rather than the 18 needed to make two full nine-panel grids. I think, if I were to complete these after-the-fact, I would add two scenes to show the journey home; closing the loop.
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