Looking Into The Mirror

December Drawing Competition


Page 1 - pen drawing

I decided to make my theme looking into the mirror.  I set up three mirrors, one a magnifying mirror at different angles, with a teapot in the middle.  It was interesting to see the multiple images and distorted images which resulted.

Page 2 - pen drawing with coloured pencils

It was interesting how the magnifying mirror slightly distorted the teapot.  It also amused me to draw the mirror and its frame, the real-life part of the page, in black and white, but to colour the reflection to make it seem more real than the real-life part.

Pages 3 and 4

I was particularly interested in the multiple images of the teapot and tried various ways to depict this.  In page 3, I cut teapot shapes, gradually decreasing in size out of sugar paper and layered them on the page.  The result looked a little flat so I broke up the surface by painting a piece of Bondaweb and ironing it on top of the teapot collage.  On the facing page, page 4, I arranged the composition to be a mirror image of page 3.  In this case I simplified the teapots into one shape.  I made a page of mirror writing, with words associated with mirrors and cut the simplified shape out of this.  I coloured the background page with tea before gluing the mirror writing shape onto it.



Page 5 - brown pen sketch on tea-stained paper

I liked the tea staining, so stained another page.  I had a brown drawing pen so did a loose scratchy sketch with it.

Page 6 - layered prints on silvered background

I wanted to try to capture something of the reflective quality of mirrors, and so glued strips of aluminium cooking foil to a page.  I "drew" the multiple teapot image onto card with a hot glue gun to make a raised line.  I inked this line and printed it onto the silvered page as well as onto tracing paper to give a translucent print which I applied on top of the printed, silvered page.  I liked the depth of the multiple prints and the fact that some of the reflective quality remained.  I had used PVA so as to try to make the tracing paper more transparent.

Page 7 - print on red paper

Page 6 was just a simple print from the hot glue gun image onto red paper.

Page 8 - monoprint

In page 7, I rolled black printing ink onto a glass plate and drew into it before taking a monoprint from it.  I cut the print to the oval shape of one of the mirrors before gluing it into my sketchbook.  

Page 9 - accidental monoprint

While one of the monoprints was still wet, a sketchpad fell onto the surface, with the white inside of the cover landing on the print.  There had been some pink ink staining the cover and this showed through the resulting accidental print in places, giving a very pleasing result.