Drawing Sea Pottery

 

Here  I have used stitch as a drawing technique and it depicts one of my favourite pieces of sea pottery that I found in Cornwall over half term. Although it took a long time to complete, I'm happy with the finished thing because the fine thread creates delicate lines that reflect the fragile nature of ceramics, plus the use of textiles relates to the domestic field of imagery that I'm working with. The calico fabric has a sense of crudeness and functionality, and I like this because it reflects the utilitarian aspect of ceramics while the thread represents the decorative side, it's a binary of usefulness and attractiveness that is seen throughout the home and informs how we value our possessions.

In my sketchbook I made some watercolour and pencil drawings, plus a grid of colours that I have observed in my collection. I used watercolour pencils to define the patterns because I could achieve more detail, while also giving the lines soft edges that mimic the frosted effect from being worn down in the sea. I made the grid with masking tape then filled the squares with colours that I mixed based on various pieces of my beach finds, again using watercolour for a soft effect. When I peeled the tape off, some of the paint had bled through and created imperfections in the squares, which I like because it reflects the uneven edges of the pottery on the left. I like making colours palettes like this because I can use them as a reference point to easily come up with colourways that are relevant to my theme.

These are some large crayon drawings that I made experimentally to play with scale and enlargement. I don't think in this case that making the small pieces into something much bigger really added anything to them, I actually don't like how much empty space there appears to be in the drawings due to the larger size. I drew with quicker lines compared with my small drawings and they lack much fine detail and there is no evidence of texture, so I would have to think about ways to improve this if I work back into it.

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