Julieduffy’s Weblog

 For my project nature as culture I began by looking into trees which seemed quite an obvious start. i was interested in the drawings that i had made and wanted to take them further. Thinking about the cultural side of the project and how to connect the two things. I went to Tayside recycal centre and came accross the school desk and chair.

The old school desk and chair made me think about when I was school and how everyone would write into the desk leaving their name or various other mentions. I wanted to recreate this feel but with my own drawings.

One of the tutors mentioned silverpoint to me which I had never heard of before. its a very old form of drawing that rembrandt had used where you drw with silver. I thought this would be quite an interesting thing to use. It took a lot of prepartion before I could even start using the silverpoint, The wood has to be prepared with 5 coats of gesso which is made from rabbit skin glue and whitening, this built up a coat so I was able to draw iwth the silver. Silverpoint is perminent so was a bit nervess about using it at first.

 i had my crit with the tutors arthur and norman. I was really pleased with how it went, they were interested in what I was doing and the idea of drawing on objects. from the feedback I got from the tutors i want to work on desk and chair making it look more aged, I wasnt so keen on how white it looked, a bit too clean and pretty, theres a way of treatingthe gesso so that it will crack so i may try this and maybe drawing over it, I want it to look more like its original state old and beaten up.

we have a drawing week, and the workshop I have signed up for is based on drawing on panels of some sort which should hopefully tie in with what i have been doing for this project.