Arachnid Orchestra and Sketching Workshop at Gillman Barracks

 

I attended another workshop and exhibition at Gillman Barracks the other day. Unlike the previous workshop which focuses on acrylic painting, this time was on basic sketching.  

 

We have the privilege of having 2 instructors teaching us that day and it started off with a demo on how to breakdown (virtually) the body parts of the wooden figurine into different shapes. 

 

Its all about line drawing. Thick lines for the shadowy parts and thin line under the light. My friend and I were from design course in polytechnic and we easily got back the ‘feel’ of sketching we once had many years back. I was quite surprised that the auntie and her daughter who shared the same table as us could sketch rather well too! We definitely surprised our instructors!

 

The next exercise which was negative drawing was quite difficult for us since we were first timers. It was basically using white pencils on black paper. The shadows were to be represented by being shaded.

 

For the wooden man, we all drew the angle that was facing us resulting in such amazing series of men. Check out our combined drawings below!  

 

 

After our workshop session, we headed over to the Arachnid Orchestra Exhibit which was located at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. It was by Berlin based artist Tomas Saraceno. Situated at the intersection between art and science, Saraceno’s artistic practice is an invitation to conceive alternative ways of knowledge, experience and interaction with others.

 

Plenty of research was done about these creatures and the exhibition was in a pitch black space lighted up by spotlights showcasing the art of nature itself. I would not want to go into details but feel free to admire these webs below.

 

Besides that, we were once again given a paper to draw these webs! It was really challenging since these webs proved to be a complicated mess of art.

 

We had to draw what we see and not what we knew. Concentration was a huge issue as once I looked down on my paper, I couldn’t remember where I last stopped at.

 

I wasn’t trying to draw lines this time. I was trying to draw textures. Many people just gave up or did not attempt to start at all. I tried my best at least before the time runs out.

 

It was a fun experience and I wouldn’t mind joining more jamming sessions in future!