Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Alton.

Welcome to this lesson on art and design.

Today's lesson is all about drawing for different purposes and needs, and this is from the unit Foundation Workshops: selecting primary sources and inspirational source material.

So let's get started.

I hope that by the end of today's lesson you can draw with purpose, using unconventional materials to create unexpected and creative outcomes.

Let's look at some key words for today's lesson.

Purpose is an artwork that is created with clear meaning and intention behind it.

Intention is how an artist creates something and what they hope to express or achieve through their work.

Unconventional is when you're exploring new or experimental techniques.

It could be subjects or materials that challenge expectations of art.

And surface is a physical medium or material on which artwork is created.

Today's lesson has been broken down into three learning cycles.

The first is setting artistic intentions.

The second is experimenting with the unconventional, and the third is evaluating outcomes for new ideas.

So let's look at learning cycle one, setting artistic intentions.

In Art and Design, Assessment Objective Two is all about creative making, and that includes how you experiment and understand the possibilities of various media.

And that's why we often do lots of experimentation as we're developing our work.

It's also about developing those very important technical skills.

So as you grow in confident, you'll see that how you refine your drawing, or the way that you use any type of material, will develop throughout the course.

What do these two words have in common? Well done if you noticed that they both refer to something you aim to achieve.

Purpose is like your big reason for doing something, or the bigger goal you want to achieve.

Intention is more about those smaller steps in terms of how you're going to move towards that end goal.

Why do you think having a clear purpose for your project is important? Aisha says, "I think it could help guide my work and spark new ideas." And Lucas says that knowing the purpose helps you get started, and allows you to reflect on your strengths as you progress.

In the creative industries, artist, designers, and craft people draw for different purposes.

Some examples might include painting for an exhibition to fit a theme, designing a T-shirt to meet a project brief, creating a 3D work, such as maquettes for sculptures or furniture commissions.

Maybe you can think and add some more examples to this list.

Artists draw for different purposes and needs, depending on what outcome they want to achieve.

Knowing your purpose can give your drawing focus.

Anish Kapoor makes sketches to explore shape and space in his sculptures.

So before he commits himself to a large-scale piece of work, he can use his sketches to manipulate all the different options that he wants to explore.

Claudette Johnson creates dramatic poses and gazes.

She uses scale to explore identity and power in these really large-scale figurative paintings.

Brice Marden uses simple abstract lines in his drawings to explore freedom and movement.

So we can see here lots of artists having a different purpose behind their work, and how that impacts the style and techniques that they use.

A quick check for understanding.

Knowing the purpose behind your work helps you stay focused.

Is that true or false? Well done if you said true.

Can you think about why that might be? Well done if you said it guides your choices, so that will create a more coherent project as you develop your work.

As we've mentioned, an intention is the action or choice you make that moves you towards this bigger goal.

Aisha is reflecting on her current project and is discussing her intentions for her next drawing.

"I want to record unseen aspects of nature." So that's her larger purpose.

So her intention is to draw small details like leaf textures and tree bark patterns.

Setting an intention is about choosing one specific approach to experiment with in each piece you create.

At the end of your project, you should be able to look at your development all the way through, and each drawing, or each new piece of work, should be taking you nearer to that end goal.

Take a look at this image.

What might the intention of this artist be? Laura says that she wants to record her local landscapes, and her intention behind this work was to layer materials to see how they interact.

And we can see that layering effect by the way the paint or ink has been manipulated onto the paper.

Over to you for a check for understanding.

Setting an intention refers to A, and action to move towards achieving your bigger goal, B, deciding which materials to use for your project, or C, the time it takes to complete your artwork.

Have a think.

Well done if you said A.

An action to move to toward achieving your bigger goal.

Understanding what excites you about your project helps guide your creative decisions and leads to this idea of a more coherent and purposeful outcome.

Ideas to help you guide your intentions could include, but are not limited to, social or political issues, personal identity, expressing feelings, experimenting with new materials or styles, capturing a moment, scene, or memory, or creating beauty through visual or emotional impact.

True or false? Reflecting on and documenting your intention gives your work direction, purpose, and meaning.

Well done if you said true.

Can you think why? Well done if you remember that documenting your intention helps guide and strengthen your creative choices, and helps this idea of developing your ideas.

Over to you for our first task.

Review your current work and use a thought shower to identify your purpose and intention.

So your thought shower may look something like this.

You might think about what your theme or context or overall goal might be.

What excites or matters to you? So this might be, as we've mentioned, a social, cultural, or political issue, or maybe one of personal identity.

It's really about what is going to motivate you through the project.

And then thinking about how am I going to get to that end goal? What are you going to focus on in your next drawing, and why? So on this example, a student has said that, "My theme is landscapes.

My goal is to create a landscape from waste products in our environment." So really thinking about what are they currently working on.

And then why are they doing it? "I want to show what matters to me, especially my concern for nature, animals, and the environment.

And these two things are then going to shape what the intention will be.

I will collect waste to create collages of imaginary landscapes, and draw from them to highlight the impact of waste on the environment.

Pause the video here while you reflect on your current work, and think about your purpose and intention.

Let's take a look at learning cycle two, experimenting with the unconventional.

Take a look at this image.

Drawing isn't just about what you see.

It's about experimenting with what you can feel and create.

Many artists use unconventional approaches to challenge traditions and lead to unexpected results.

How does the artist use materials in this artwork? And it's important to remember the artwork and drawing in particular can be created in any media style or technique.

This mixed media piece was inspired by the artist Billie Zangewa, who makes fabric collages and stitches into them.

Her work is about her identity.

Unconventional materials can create unique textures, forms, and effects in artwork.

They may include things like food items, such as yeast extract, mustard, or ketchup, found objects like metal scraps, old tools, or discarded items. Can you think of any other unconventional materials that you might use? Jun says he could use repurposed everyday items, and Alex says he could use natural elements like leaves, soil, sand, or twigs.

Anthony Gormely is an artist known for using unconventional materials.

In his drawings, he's used food items such as yeast extract to create unique textures and effects.

He also experimented with bread as a sculpting material.

So he layered lots and lots of white-sized bread together to create almost like this tomblike shape of a figure.

And this was to reflect the fragility and form of the human body.

So really interesting examples of using unconventional materials, and really to think about how the body reflects the world around us, and the connection between the two.

A check for understanding.

Which of the following materials are considered to be unconventional for drawing.

Is it A, paint, inks, and watercolour, B, tape, sand, and wire, C, pencils, charcoal, and pastels, or D, yeast extract, chocolate syrup, and honey? I'm sure you probably guessed that the chocolate syrup, honey, and yeast extract were unconventional, and also tape, sand, and wire.

The other options are traditional options for creating a drawing.

So using this combination of unusual materials can challenge traditional notions of drawing, and it encourages this idea of thinking outside the box.

So in this part of the lesson, we're going to do a short practical activity.

And in this demonstration you can see that I'm experimenting with food materials, and this was actually some cranberry that I found in the fridge.

And here I'm using a pallet knife to spread the cranberry as if it was a paint.

So my intention is to experiment with what texture and effects I can create with a food product.

So for your activity, you're going to pause the video and see what texture and effects you can create with different food products.

So you can think quite openly here about what you might have available, what might spread onto the paper, and then we're going to have a think about how different products interact with the surface that you've chosen, and whether you found it easier to create marks with some of the products, rather than others.

So take a moment here to pause the video and try this activity.

So hopefully you have fun with that task.

You may have discovered that materials interact with different surfaces and can produce some surprising results.

Can you think of any unconventional surfaces that you could draw on? Jacob says that he could use see-through surfaces, so things like plastic, glass, or acetate.

So the drawing itself becomes transparent.

And Aisha comments that she could draw on the surfaces of objects that we usually throw away, so maybe things like packaging, or surfaces with interesting qualities, like baking paper or foil, things that you might have at home.

Ava Hesse was a sculptor who experimented with unconventional materials and surfaces to create surprising textures and effects.

She pushed the limits of traditional sculpture, making abstract organic shapes that showed ideas of fragility and vulnerability.

So one example of her work is where she took cheesecloth, so something that wasn't usual for a sculpture, and combined latex on top of the fabric, and then hung it so that gravity would do its work.

And this created lots of interesting unconventional surfaces on the fabric, which was quite similar when it was hung to the surface of skin.

So her work really showed how different materials, and pushing the limits of different surfaces, can come together to create unexpected and unique results.

Over to you for a check for understanding.

So this is a practise task.

In this example I'm drawing on the unconventional surface of baking paper, so I'm using marker pens here, 'cause it could be a quite shiny surface to work on.

And I'm thinking about what unexpected results can I create with the type of drawing that I'm doing.

And in particular, I'm looking at how you can use light behind the drawing, and that effect of transparency.

So for this task, what I'd like you to do is just take a moment to think about some unconventional materials that you could develop your drawing on, and that could be in any media.

So if you enjoyed experimenting with food, you might continue that, just on a different surface.

So pause the video here while you work on some unconventional surfaces.

So just take a moment to have a reflection on whether you noticed any difference between your chosen surface and the conventional drawing paper that we used previously.

Did you experiment with working on more than one surface? And maybe if you didn't have time today, you can just keep your eye out for some of these interesting surfaces that you may be able to bring into your work.

So unconventional in art can also mean using traditional techniques in new ways.

Barbara Walker is an artist who takes a traditional drawing technique of negative space and reinterprets it to create powerful contrasts in her figures.

Her figures are drawn in such a beautifully detailed way.

All the intricate realistic features are added, but she leaves certain areas empty, and this really emphasises the forms and shapes in her work.

And by doing so, almost like a half-finished drawing, as such, it adds visual impact, and draws attention into the space around her subject.

So as a viewer, you are looking at it and thinking, "Why is that part missing? What is that shape or empty space telling me?" It offers a fresh perspective on the traditional techniques that she's using, and highlights the power of what's not seen.

True or false? Surfaces do not have an effect on the look and feel of materials.

Well done if you said false.

Can you think about why? Well done if you mention that surfaces can dramatically affect how materials behave, and that includes, as you've discovered, I'm sure, how they interact, maybe how they stick or absorb, or show through the background.

So that really impacts the final outcome.

Another true or false.

Using traditional techniques in new ways challenges traditional notions of drawing.

Well done if you said true.

Have a think about why.

Well done if you mentioned that using traditional techniques in these kinda new ways really promotes thinking outside the box, and just allows for that more freedom in your creative processes.

So another pause for you to do a practical check for understanding.

In this demonstration, I'm using positive and negative space, so like Barbara Walker, but I'm using it in an unconventional way.

So I found some felt, and I've cut out some silhouettes, and then just kind of layered them on top of each other.

And your task is to use positive and negative space in an unconventional way.

So this can be with any materials that you might have laying around.

You could draw, like Barbara Walker, or you could think about a cutout, like I've done here.

I hope you find some interesting materials to work with.

Pause the video here where you complete this task.

So in this task, pause to reflect, did you experiment with overlapping? Or maybe notice how experimenting with positive and negative space can create this idea of emphasis in your work.

So how could you develop your work by reimagining drawing techniques using unconventional materials and surfaces? Let's take a look at what Jacob's doing.

He's been using continuous line drawing to document an idea in his book, and he wants to make a sculpture from his drawing.

So he is thinking that maybe wire would be a good choice to transform his drawing into a 3D work.

Aisha's working in textiles.

So she's done some drawings, and then thinking how can she develop that into maybe a textile piece? And her idea is to use stitches.

So she'll reimagine her drawing, using a whole arrangement of embroidery stitches, and maybe think about working those onto different materials as well, different surfaces, so that might be acetate or papers or fabrics.

And then she can think about incorporating lots of texture into her work.

Lucas is doing self-portraiture, and he's taking the idea of drawing with the food products that he likes to eat.

So there's this correlation between this idea of identity coming out in the self-portraiture through the products that he's choosing to draw with.

So all of these students are thinking about reimagining their drawing with this idea of the unconventional material, but still keeping a clear direction for their work.

Now for our second task.

Reimagine a drawing technique using unconventional materials or surfaces.

So for this activity, select a stimulus, so that could be a previous piece of work that you've done, a photograph, objects, or real-life observations, so you could sit in front of something and draw it.

You could choose materials, surfaces, and techniques that best support your intention.

So really thinking about what would be most purposeful in terms of my choices and push my project towards its end goal.

Consider how the choices affect the message of your drawing.

So like in the previous example, we saw Lucas saying that he was doing self portraits, and then thinking about the food products that he loved.

So there's a definite link there between what he's trying to look at, which is the self, and then thinking about what his likes and dislikes are, and thinking about how the materials might speak of that.

So think about that message of your own work.

Pause the video here while you experiment with drawing in unconventional materials.

So how did you find that? I hope you discovered some interesting new ways to use materials, techniques, and surfaces.

Let's take a look at what your work may have looked like.

So here's an example of drawing with stitch onto acetate.

So thinking about those different surfaces and how materials might interact.

And here's an example of printing on torn and layered surfaces.

Let's look at learning cycle three, evaluating outcomes for new ideas.

After each piece of work, take time to evaluate your outcomes.

Evaluation is an important part of the development process and it helps you to reflect on your choices, understand what worked, discover new possibilities.

It's also a really big part of assessment objective-free in art and design, so it's always worth spending time thinking about these reflections, because they'll help develop your project as you go along.

It helps you set new intentions, so they're smaller incremental steps that are gonna take you to your larger goal.

Evaluating your outcomes can lead to new ideas, because is it A, it creates repetition in your project, B, it shows you the exact amount of time needed, C, it encourages you to repeat the same process, or D, it helps you set new intentions from what you learned.

Well done if you said D, it helps you set new intentions from what you've learned.

It's also really important to remember that there's no right way of documenting your intentions and your outcomes.

It's very personal and unique to your process.

It's like having a conversation with yourself about your work, what works, what doesn't, and what's evolving.

If you find that what you are writing isn't purposeful to you, then it's probably not relevant.

So really make it personal in terms of what you want to achieve and get out of your drawing, or the work that you are currently working on.

So when documenting your intentions and outcomes, it has to be presented in a certain way to receive high marks.

Do you think that statement is true or false? Well done if you said false.

Remember that focus on clearly expressing your ideas and reflecting on your process, not the amount of words or the format that you use.

So for our last task, note down any new discoveries, and how they might link to your overall purpose and intention.

Consider what worked well.

So look back over the experiments and the activities you've done in the lesson.

Which materials or technique created the effects that you wanted? Also maybe think about what didn't work.

Were there any challenges or unexpected results, or things you would do differently next time? How did your choices support your intention? Did your material surfaces and techniques help convey your message, so that bigger purpose or goal? And what can you improve or change? How would you build on the idea to set a new intention for your next piece of work? Pause the video here while you reflect on the outcomes that you've made today.

So you may have said, like Aisha here, that she did printing.

So printing on multiple surfaces allowed her to develop her ideas in various ways to create her T-shirt designs.

And Lucas says that stitching on acetate, as we saw earlier, allowed him to layer and collage images beneath it.

So he incorporated text within his work to share his message.

So let's take a look at a summary for today's lesson.

Referring to the overall purpose of your project helps keep your work on track.

Documenting your intentions and evaluating your process ensures coherence and supports idea development.

Experimenting with unconventional surfaces and materials can lead to surprising creative outcomes.

Using unusual materials challenges traditional notions of drawing, and encourages thinking outside the box, offering more freedom in the creative process.

Thank you for learning with me today, and I hope to see you next time.