Making our mark! - 30th April, 2019


Slave ship leaving Whitehaven Harbour by Sienna

Whitehaven Harbour 1840

Whilst we have been travelling back in time to the 1800s learning about the history of our area, we have referred to many old drawings and paintings from the time - these show us what Whitehaven Harbour was like then, the ships, the people, the buildings and the industries there, coal and ore mining, ship building, pottery making.  There were no cameras then, so we set about exploring how the artists used various marks to show us what life was like then.


 
We looked closely at some paintings like this one above - which is made up of hard and soft marks - so we set off trying the variety of marks we can make using pencil, pen, charcoal and coloured pastels.

We tried different thicknesses of marks, dots, curved, straight, looped and dashes - we used our fingers and rubbers to smudge our marks - making soft areas.

A great example by Lexie








  


Many of the examples we studied showed smoke from chimneys, dark skies and seas and reflections.

Some of us experimented using our materials to create this effect - which gives atmosphere to the drawings and paintings we had seen.

Aneasha's drawing shows how we can smudge the charcoal to give the effect of distance and perspective.









Chloe chose a photograph from Port Carlisle as it is now that Jac had taken - and using hard and soft marks - Chloe was able to give the effect of the sky and horizon.

Chloe said 'I loved drawing with charcoal - it was my favourite'.





Well done Chloe! Lovely soft reflections
Whilst we had lots of pictures for inspiration, the aim was more about exploring mark making without any expectation of outcomes other than enjoying the process but our little arty group excelled again - well done everyone for being brave and trying something new even if messy!   Here are more great examples......



'Am proud of both my pictures' Evan





Aneasha's finished picture of Carlisle Canal Basin -
capturing the atmosphere of the time perfectly!

Aneasha said 'I thought I couldn't do it but I learned from what you told me'.




What I enjoyed...

drawing the train - Lexie
It was messy! - Evan









Proof it was messy!

Lexie's hands.

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