Kevin Swallow 12/23/12 Kevin Swallow 12/23/12

Experimental Drawing Techniques - Week 4

The last week of the Experimental Drawing Techniques class was spent creating Exquisite Corpse drawings. For those not familiar, Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative drawing/painting technique where you continuously create a piece of art based on what was created previously. This technique was originally practiced in the 1920's by the Surrealists, who combined mind-altering substances with intuitive and improvised art making.

For this particular exercise, we folded pieces of paper into quarters and then each person created a "panel" and passed it on to the next person. The next person didn't know what you made but was able to play off of some colors, shapes, or lines that bled onto their panel.Then they created something in response to what you created, and passed it on...and so on...

Here are some example panels I created:

And here's a finished piece of one Exquisite Corpse drawing I started:

Finally, here are all the Exquisite Corpse drawings from the class:

Overall, a very good class that I got a lot out of. It brought on some new creative ideas but also loosened me up and helped me develop ideas and create in different ways. Particularly, I had fun experimenting with ink and drawing objects from different perspectives while giving them unusual textures.

Kevin Swallow 12/13/12 Kevin Swallow 12/13/12

Experimental Drawing Techniques - Week 3

This week's class helped me break free more than expected but also helped me focus. We were assigned to bring in an object - something mundane that might evoke an emotion or personal meaning.

I chose to bring in a rubber door stop from my studio:

We sketched the objects during various warm-up exercises:

Then added textures, rubbings, masking and more media that created some interesting abstractions:

Kevin Swallow 12/11/12 Kevin Swallow 12/11/12

Experimental Drawing Techniques - Week 2

Here are some of the more successful drawings I made in week 2 of my Experimental Drawing Techniques class. I mostly focused on drawing still life objects at various angles.

Kevin Swallow 12/4/12 Kevin Swallow 12/4/12

Experimental Drawing Techniques - Week 1

Last week, I started an experimental drawing techniques class. A lot of the theories and techniques are based on Surrealism. It was a fun first class -- learning some new techniques and playing around with different materials. Below are the results of the first class.

Acrylic ink, watercolor, and conté crayon art sticks on Bristol paper. The last one is on Yupo paper - a smooth, translucent vellum material.