Exercise 4.0 - Fill it up - FAST!

For this task I was meant to fill up one whole sketchbook, to its maximum in a single trip out - creating a visual diary. I had to use preferably on small sketchbook with a small number of leaves and had to draw speedily focusing mainly on making a 'collage' of multiple simple drawings or vignetted scenes that drew my attention.

To complete the task I had to split the activity between two different locations, my initial location was the Watford Museum and since they had a reduced public opening hours and visits by booking, my sketching time was reduced to one hour, nonetheless I managed to produce quite a few sketches and as the time was lapsing I took a picture and completed the sketch at home.

My second location was at the School I work at. I usually sit at the back of the classroom and managed to compile a collage of sketches made within that environment.

The rules were:

Fill up every page through drawing multiple images on most pages. Draw as many different things as I could to capture the experience of where I were at the time. Not pondering too long on any of the images.
Look to document quick scenes, objects, figures and forms of elements in front of me, which I was drawn towards.
When filling up the book, try to undertake at least two pages where I leave no white gapsat all between drawings on the page. To achieve that, I could use notes of any wording, sounds, smells or snippets of conversation and description to fill up some of the area. Overlapping drawings with different coloured drawing tools, using varying thicknesses of line, or marks.
When hitting the centrepage, spend a little more time doing a larger drawing of a scene across the entire spread.

School sketches

Museum sketch

Museum sketch - Sketched a WW2 uniform with gas masks worn by Watford military guards at the foreground with an old map with bombed sites marked with orange and purple dots.

Task reflection

During the task I used a black pen as my main material, however, I added some watercolour felt tip marker pen, grey tone markers, ballpoint pens on watercolour paper, I tried to combine them or use them on their own.
By working fast on the same theme, I learned to be more observant and selective about what would It contribute to show what I intended on the sketchbook, to create a mood. By working fast and accumulating pages of sketchbooks, is also useful to expand my visual database and creates extra resources for when I need to develop a story.
When I started the task, I found myself reverting to old habits of drawing slower and getting entangled on details, however after awhile, whilst keeping the time constraints in mind, it made me neglect details and focus more on filling a page in the shortest time possible. This was more obvious at School where I didn't have a choice but to be quick since I had small windows of time to get as much done as possible.
I would try a different environment in the future, let's suppose I want to create a graphic novel, and I have a certain mood or environment in mind for the story, could be a natural history museum, a busy road in central london for make an action scene or a location with gothic buildings, this method of filling the sketchbook in the shortest amount of time will be extremely useful to gather ideas.

OCA Illustration Sketchbooks

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