Sensing the Object

This project is about loosening up and drawing objects when either our vision or drawing implements are manipulated. The object I picked out of the lucky dip to work with was a tea pot! In order to do this, firstly devices had to be made to alter sight and sense of touch.

To alter my sight I didn't quite devise a device to wear as headgear or likewise, but instead placed a drinking glass over one eye and closed the other, so that the circular base of the glass distorted the object I perceived. What I saw was something like this:

I then moved the glass around at different angles to 'change the shape' of the tea pot in different ways. I also swapped eyes a couple of times. Here is a selection of quick sketches I did of what I saw through the glass:

The sketches were done using a brush pen so that the strokes were loose and flowing. I quite like the variety of shapes and forms shown here on the page.

In order to alter my sense of touch, I first taped a long paintbrush to the back of my right leg, and then attached a stick of charcoal to the end of that, so it would be just poking out at the base of the heel on my foot. In this way, I would effectively be drawing with my heel.

One thing I learnt from this activity is that it does not take long at all for a suspended leg to start aching. Although I was sitting down, drawing with one's foot is quite a challenge, and a tiring one at that!

Still, it was probably worth the effort. Here is my finished drawing in charcoal of my lovely teapot!

 I thought I'd have another go with a different drawing implement. Last time I used a controlled material (charcoal) with a part of my body that is difficult to control (my foot). So I thought I'd try for control with my body (using my hand) but with a material that is much harder to use:

Yes - PAPERCLIPS! Attached to a piece of string and dipped in black paint - glorious.

I's really happy with the result! The paperclips created fabulous marks - either scattered drops of paint or scraped lines depending on how I maneuvered the string and how much string I allowed between my hand and the paperclips. In some cases you can actually see paperclip prints!

It turns out I actually liked the photograph through the glass so much that I decided to draw that too, this time in pastels, roughly, to draw out the bold colours: