Lecture 5 - Representation Techniques II - Composition

The lecture exercise and assignment 3 seemed harder than usual because it is a departure from the usual sketches we have made and developed with Freehand thus far, rather we now have to apply rather complicated-sounding representation techniques (such as Golden mean) to our photo compositions.

I had a hard time completing the lecture activity, because I couldn't find anything ambiguous of interest in or around the room. Hence, I came out with an idea that is not exactly something which I saw, but which I feel is likely to happen:




In this preliminary sketch, I portrayed a couple with arms around each other's waist. However, I made the sex of the person on the right ambiguous by drawing him/her shorter than the girl, and carrying a fremale-like bag while wearing male-like clothing, casting doubts on the couple's sexual orientation as well. A hand holding the handphone can be construed as either taking a photo of the couple (many voyeurs do abound) or messaging his/her friend. After I did the drawing, I had a feeling that somehow I did not do things right, and I was right when Reddy told me not to use my imagination but draw something as I see it, but with my own perspective.

Though rather confused about the exercise in general, I decided to change my theme and follow my friend Damon's theme of drawing the scenery outside the room (I initially discussed with him on doing this drawing together but decided to come out with the more controversial drawing, having misinterpreted the instructions). Hence, below is my revised sketch for this lecture exercise:


This drawing is of the outside scenery featuring the sea, ships, crane, a factory and tall, thin plants. It makes use of the Golden mean with the rule of thirds coming into play with a boat, the crane, the plants and even the railing appearing at roughly the intersections of the thirds segments. Perspective and ambiguity is featured in the portrayal of the ships and removal of the finer details of the ships and factory in the background. The 'story' behind it is that man-made activities such as fishing, construction and industrial production is damaging the environment, represented by the thinning of the leaves of the plant located closest to these 'polluting' elements.

Now, on to generating ideas for Assignment 3, which I feel I needed to spend more time on, given the constrains such as time and resources. Hopefully I could come up with something soon.