On a large scale

On Friday I put some A1 sheets on the wall and used brush pens and letraset markers to draw the image on a larger scale.

This is what I meant to do with the projector a few weeks ago, except the projector I hired didn't work. I think with a projector it would have been more helpful, as my main problem with this was the scale and proportions were really hard to get right, from looking at a small photograph to converting to an A1 size.

What the larger scale drawing did help me with though was exploring the facial expression in the photo. When i'm drawing on A4 I find it hard to capture the expression on my dad's face, as the light in the photograph causes blocks of shade around the contours of the face. I found that drawing it on a larger scale allowed it to open up and find the facial expression a bit more. This then really helped when I went back to continuing my A4 series, the last few I have drawn have been closer to the origional photograph than my previous efforts.

This really worked in a similar way to my exercises in drawing from memory, different mediums, etc- just getting more familiar with the image and seeing how this effects the pattern. Each time I draw the image I have to question whether I'm drawing from the image or from what I remember drawing about the image. More often than not, it's a mixture of both, but with the memory of how to draw the image as much more of an influence.