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For my first ever project as a Cambridge School of Art student I’ll be completing the module ‘Observation and Experiment’ which involves very much what is stated in the title. For this we had to chose a theme to base lots of first hand, observational drawing around. I decided to focus this around my home town of Boston in Lincolnshire and hope to capture a sense of place through my images. This project is all about getting back into drawing from observation: something which by the end of my Ba I had been rather out of practice with!

I thought the town would be an interesting subject matter for this project for a variety of reasons. I have the choice of drawing people, objects and settings and a town with a lot of important history to explore. I’d be interested in mapping the traces of the ‘old Boston’ which differs to the feel of the place now.

Of course, the primary aim of this project is to get to grips with drawing and do plenty of it but I hope I am able to depict a sense of place in the images I end up producing. Below are a couple of shaky first hand images I have so far.

(Port of Boston, Charcoal)

(Watercolour and Pencil)

My initial worries about this subject matter is that maybe it doesn’t suit my work or provide me with enough potential in developing my strengths and how I enjoy working. For example (seen below) my best and favorite work is very colorful and at first I worried that such a ‘dull’ and ‘bleak’ subject matter, a british town in winter would look quite boring visually. However… I have always liked to think that the most ‘boring’ places can be the subject of the most interesting images. I look forward to really evaluating my use of colour to express an atmosphere.

Some inspirations for this can be seen below and  include Lowry as well as current artists such as Laura Carlin.

I will be drawing over the next three months up until December and am looking forward to seeing what I produce! In this first week it has been rather daunting drawing first hand again after having not done so apart from life drawing sessions for a long while! Despite this I am really enjoying the process and look forward to seeing my observational skills develop.

(Graphite)