Ruilin Song

Most of my drawings for this task are inspired by a trip to the Horniman Museum and Gardens. When I was looking at Frederick Horniman’s collections, I was amazed by the quantity as well as the quality of marine fossils there. I was obsessed with the exquisite yet imperfect patterns on shells in particular. So I tried to recreate the beauty of them by using large colour blocks and simple lines. For some, I drew the outside spiral shape and the inner pattern as a whole. During this practice, I focused so much on the objects themselves that the outcomes are quite graphic. I should have developed the patterns further by zooming in and out the photos. In spite of the lack of creativity in these drawings, I think the choice of colour can be more interesting as well. Not like the most common shells we see on the beach, which are greyish or brownish, some in this collection have bright and glorious colours, but I failed to present that. I believe the main reason is that I got used to drawing with markers and did not explore various media enough. Looking back now, both acrylic and oil pastels may give some surprising colour combinations and textures. There are two things I learned from this task. First, do not be trapped in detail. Drawing is a way of showing your personal understanding of something, so trying to draw down exactly what you see is pointless and time-consuming. Second, there is never a finished piece. You should always play around with previous works and try out different materials.