Hunting & Gathering: Sketching Vignettes and Lists

Thursday afternoon with Fred Lynch . Have a look at this great short video of Fred describing his Workshop.

Day 1 – the afternoon.

As I write this I am recalling how I spent the time between morning and afternoon Workshops –  I remember now – finding hot food and trying to get warm. After sitting out in the open in the morning on a carpark floor, I was pleased that Fred Lynch’s Workshop Hunting & Gathering: Sketching Vignettes and Lists was based indoors (although we did go outside at intervals)

I choose this workshop as I hoped it would assist me to capture the essence of a place without having to sketch the whole scene.  It did this, but was also the most challenging Workshop I attended as I had think about  technique and what I put on the page .

Vignettes

After an introduction to and discussion of vignettes , including examples of what they are, we were given 20 minutes to go out and sketch. We had to sketch a 4 thumbnail sketches  of one object, from 4 different views or focus. I chose the facade of a nearby building, zooming in on some features, or stepping back to show more of the building.

vignette longer study

The second sketching session was a longer study of one of our initial thumbnail sketches. This   challenged me as it involved the interaction of the white of the page and blocking out silhouetted shapes. In this case the image had to speak, to make a statement, to tell. My usual style is the ‘unfinished’ look where edges fade away,. That is the visual equivalent of the edge of the vignette saying ‘blah blah bl…” instead of telling a whole story . It was very difficult not to fall back into the familiar. I found it difficult to know where to find the hard edge to stop.

Lists

This was great fun. In the ‘classroom’ we discussed things about Manchester that were different from home. Some unusual suggestions were made. We then went  out to hunt for something to sketch  a visual list. This was easy  as I knew it would be a building feature. We do have chimneys in Melbourne (it was 12 degrees yesterday in our Spring) , but there were so many unusual chimneys in the one block that I wanted to draw them.  I don’t know why I sketched them so small on the page ! I found these easier to give distinct hard edges to.

MY TAKEAWAYS

• lists can reveal more than a whole scene
• they are an alternative way of describing a place by and showing your interest and communicating it to people
• it is hard to change your normal style in three hours