In my drawing exploration, I started with an unusual sketch from my sketchbook. I drew a weird wheel machine thing at an industrial themed coffee shop one day because I liked how the wheel broke up the dominating vertical lines. And there were some repeating dots I was interested in exploring within the larger shapes.

Based on my list of likes/interests, I knew I wanted to play with shapes and I thought I could make this ordinary object into a dynamic composition, so I explored, step-by-step, how to extract what I liked from the original sketch to make a completely unique sketch that I could use to make a painting.

 

Some notes on my drawings:

1. My original sketch from my sketchbook. I was interested in the complex shapes of this machinery. And how the wheel breaks up the vertical lines. I plan to make a gouache painting for my final (eleventh) iteration after I complete my drawing exploration.

2. My second sketch that simplified my original drawing to focus on the elements I find interesting (the overall circle and rectangle shapes with smaller dots in between).

3. My third iteration that simplified my original drawing even more and began to experiment with more abstraction.

4. My fourth sketch that really made a jump from the original by cropping the composition right to the wheel.

5. My fifth iteration where I rearranged elements of the original sketch based on my composition change from the fourth sketch.

6. My sixth sketch experimented with my idea for a centered composition (from my list of likes).

7. My seventh iteration pushed a graphic concept, scaling up the arrows and returning to the “OPEN” letters. I’m glad I explored this further, but I didn’t like it. 

8. My eighth sketch returned to my focus on the wheel. I broke up my centered wheel into halves.  I also experimented with symmetry. This was a big shift from sketches six and seven but I love it!

9. My ninth sketch, again, cropped my composition to really zoom in on the wheel, even cropping out the edges. This was interesting and I wanted to push it a little further.

10. My tenth and final iteration explored a diagonal twist to the composition, which gave it some dynamic movement. I’m happy and feel like it represents my list of likes/interests. I can’t wait to paint it as a final piece :)

 

My final painting

I used a fun, bright color scheme to really make the shapes I created pop and emphasize movement. After completing my first paint layer, I added some details with colored pencil, crayon, and paper cutouts. 

 

I'm very happy with my final painting and so surprised with how far it came from my original sketch! It was so fun to experiment with a new color scheme and paper cutouts in my process :)

I really like my eighth drawing too, so I might go back and make a pencil drawing or something based on that sketch.