Project : Enlarging an object

Have had a bit of a break due to a great holiday and approached this exercise with a healthy degree of trepidation. Quite frankly I was not convinced that enlarging an image using a square grid would either be very effective or a good learning tool ... how wrong I was!!

Broke the rules of instruction by doing a larger than recommended drawing and with more detail than recommended - this was a. because of my above comments and I am clearly a VERY bad student and b. I was enjoying a glass of wine and felt inspired to draw ... so, my drawing was about 16 cm tall, and like I say not simple as such as it contains reflection etc (good practice from previous projects whilst also thinking ahead to my assignment - may use a wine glass as a man made item).

Then I broke the rules and drew squares 4cm square on an A2 sheet of paper (could not see how 20cm boxes would fit on anything other than a huge sheet) and after creating a 2cm square grid on acetate I set off to draw my drawing! Genuinely surprised at the results! My enlarged image looks like my own smaller image yet I have been able to improve it as I was able to improve the symmetry and introduction of limited colour using inktense pencils has added an extra dimension. (shame I smudged the coloured pencil - lesson there!!).

So, check and log:

I feel that I have been successful in copying the lines and image from the smaller squares to the larger and in fact focusing on just one square at a time helped the creation of the bigger image to feel 'managable' and not overwhelming. Given the complex shading in the glass I would have been put off had I not approached it one square at a time. Plus I would never have considered undertaking such a large drawing of a glass. I really liked the way the grid helped 'strip back' the essentials and simplify the image and is an approach I will undertake many times and will apply to my painting also.

I am surprisingly satisfied with my enlarged image and found it useful to correct errors in the original drawing - not completely but definitely improved. I think next time I shall balance the focus on drawing in the squares against the whole image a little more - continually referring to the overall drawing rather than just the squares - using the squares to gauge the broad positioning then get a sense of how the overall looks (are shapes balanced, perspective right, broad areas of marked tone etc), adjust and then focus in on the squares.

Overall a great technique that I have never done before and in fact never even considered! It has never occurred to me that I could enlarge an image of my own without starting from scratch - it also shows me that could relatively easily make a 'small image' big without losing integrity.

Fabulous!!