Exercise 1 Birds eye view.

As I begin mapping with this exercise my heart wasn’t really in it as I hadn’t really finished with the reportage in part 3. I’d been having such joy and real immersion with the materials and the work I was doing that I wanted to continue. I shared this with my tutor in my tutorial and she suggested I interpret the mapping in my own way. I gave a lot of thought to this and I think I can achieve this and complete the exercises to a good standard. I had already begun on a couple of the tasks such as my route to school and the birds eye view of where I am sat while undertaking the reading of the task. I shall revise the latter exercise.

What is really interesting about these exercises is how they force you to go back in time. My childhood wasn’t a particularly good time for me and going back to the ages of ten and six is really difficult. In contrast to my peers who often can recall quite vivid joyful reflections of their childhood memories, in contrast mine are very vague and I can only remember well some quite bad experiences. I guess my memory deliberately protects me from the stark reality of how life was. My upbringing was punctuated with domestic violence and alcoholism. However, whilst on one hand I would have preferred happier and contented times, my upbringing has helped shape the compassionate and placid person I have been during adulthood, and who I am today. Whilst I consider myself to have no unresolved feelings about the past, I am sure that there will be some people that will struggle. For them, it may not be appropriate to dwell on the past. Further looking at a bedroom as a teenager might not be good either. Most sexually abused children will be abused in their bedrooms. I will discuss this with my tutor when I get the opportunity as I feel some of this exercise should be changed.

As I proceed, I cut all my paper to size. I use wallpaper lining for the exercise and initially follow the instructions about mapping my route to school. I use the coloured pencils as the exercise suggests. From the house where I was born I map my route. Memories come flooding back of the route. I lived in a semi-detached council house and drew my route from this point leaving plenty space as I laid my trail to school. Not too far from the house were local lock up garages and some playing fields with swings and a roundabout. There were two main routes to school, and both took me through the more salubrious housing development. One route kept me on the main roads and the other took me over fields and a lark parkland area which backed onto the school at the bottom. I would use both routes. I tried to map out the parkland and the green areas and my two main routes to school I penned with a broken line. The exercise stated use coloured pencils but I can’t say I enjoy using these. The drawing is a bit childlike.

My next drawing is from where I’m sitting when I am reading the exercise. I just have to undertake this birds eye view in charcoal. As stated above I had made a start in pencil so I’m going over the lines. As I proceed I’m going darker and lighter in some areas and I really begin to create more atmosphere immediately. I’m liking this exercise much better now. I draw in the desk and window in front of me. I then draw in the book case and drawers on my right going heavier. I think I enjoyed this one more as I was back to charcoal. I rub in some colour to the background of the drawing and cross hatch some drawers and cabinets.

Undertaking an aerial view can be quite difficult and the main issue is what to put in and to gauge whether you are directly overhead. Direct overhead means that you will not see as much of the object. I guess there’s some poetic license.

The next drawing is of the bedroom as a teenager. I completed this small charcoal sketch. The room was quite sparse but always tidy. I had a bed and a wardrobe but no desk or dressing table. Looking back isn’t great on this one.

The next drawing is about a map of my country. In order to do this I downloaded a map of Great Britain as below. The exercise says country so I will not include Scotland and Ireland on my drawing.

I draw it freehand and then decide to mark on the map the places of significance to me and one or two drawings to signify their importance. I won’t say it’s in the style of Dant but I do mark one or two things out with small drawings. Stourbridge where I used to live for example is famous for its glassware industry. Wellington where I live now has a monument and is famous for the Duke of Wellington. I also put in London and the metropolis for galleries and St Ives Hepworth gallery and the Newly school of art in Penzance. My drawing is below.

I can’t say I’ve enjoyed this exercise but some of it has been useful. Mapping can be a very useful tool however it is accomplished and I am using this for the assignment.