Exercise: Abstract illustration

For this exercise I had to listen to a piece of instrumental music and create marks which convey my interpretation of the essence or mood of the piece. I was to do this quickly and rely on intuition to bring a certain degree of self-expression to the exercise.

I made a list of my favourite classical music tunes and had a try at a few different songs on an A2 size sketch page. I started with Bach’s Cello Suit No.1 in G Major and decided to use pastels for ease and quickness and for the ‘lightness’ of the song. I tried to actually follow the melody of the tune with my strokes and lines and applied different layers and colours to come up with the below:

The last one became almost like trying to follow the different instruments across manuscript paper. I enjoyed this method and the patterns that came out of it but I wanted to try another couple of songs. Then I picked Vivaldi’s 12 Violin Concerts, Op. 8 which which has so much sparkly violin that I tried quick explosive marks and ended up with a bit of a fireworks look as per the below:

I then had a go with Jazz Suite No. 2: Vl. Waltz 2 which has a melody that, because its a waltz is very circular and goes round in a flowing way that made me think of circles and flowing dresses as dancers would swing round and round. So I went with that concept and came up with the below:

For the last two I started using acrylic paints for the base and then adding oil pastel and then pastel on top and using pencil pastel for the fine detail – which helped add texture and imply movement.

I then had to chose an adjective or word that I felt described the tone of the piece. I chose to go with the last piece above and picked the word ‘fluid’. Then, I chose a square of the drawing that I felt communicates ‘fluid’ and has visually interesting qualities and had to reproduce it. I decided that I would stick to blues and greens to go with the fluid idea of water and since they are colours that are soft and cool and so more calming.

I played around with different possible squares and found one which had nice curves and movement and various circles of different sizes. Before replicating it I tried out some different colours and mixes of materials to be able to further lighten and soften the image.

I tried some ink and water and some pastels only and rather than use acrylic I tried water colour base and then added layers of pastel and oil pastel which worked best. On this basis I created the below final product!