Illustration Sketchbooks - Exercise 4.1: Description and Depiction

I found the prospect for this exercise really intriguing. For this exercise, I had to go to an interesting location and then depict it in four ways. I was instructed to set up my sketchbook page in advance:

1. Write a written description of the scene, in any style or fashion that I saw fit. It was suggested that I consider all my senses.

2. I was to use words in the place of drawings to depict the scene.

3. Draw the scene.

4. Use a combination of drawing and words.

I had been struggling with a depressive mood swing so I took myself to a canal twenty miles or so away, in the hope that I could get a nice walk and a tranquil setting where some activity might occur. I had to be careful as the first effects of COVID-19 were being felt. I wanted to make sure I remained relatively isolated.

I found a bench by a bend in the canal with a bridge. It was peaceful but right by an intersection, so there were often people coming by and plenty of birds around looking to be fed!

Surprisingly I really enjoyed the pure writing part, but each of them brought their own fulfilment. When it came to doing the combination quarte, I was a little tired at the prospect at drawing at the same level of detail of the third, drawing-only quarter. So I dialled back some of the detail and wondered how best to include words. I pondered the text I had written, and sitting in that place it was the sounds that had made it come alive for me, so I decided to try and include sounds as words on the image. The bridge is a road bridge so there were often cars going across, I tried to capture that in my fourth image, and make the words part of the landscape. It was really fun.

I liked the way that the image and words work together to set the sense of place, and the result complemented the first quarter. If I were to render it again with more space, I would like to break down the scene and combine more of the descriptive elements that I wrote. Those initial words really set the tone on what I wanted to emphasise on. I found this really useful, as it forces one to be a little more centred and present. I found that I took the time to think about how I wanted to describe the situation.

I would like to take these ideas further and see how they influence my work.