Part 3 Project 4 Ex 2

Two point or angular perspective

It is the day after Boxing Day and although the weather is bright the ground is covered in a substantial depth of snow.  In view of that I've opted to draw a pile of books on a table rather than a building seen corner on.

I am reminded of my very first work on this course and how I tussled with drawings books on a table.

My early drawing of books on a table

I can only hope that the things I've learnt help a bit!

I now know that what I was attempting was just too complicated for someone who didn't know what she doing!

Only in the interest of honesty in my blog am I including this.  I've marked on my eye level and drawn in some perspective lines but it seems so wrong I couldn't continue.  I think maybe it's the fact that all the books are at a different angle.  I ended up getting so frustrated I put it to one side hoping that something would drop into place.

Fortunately the following day there was less snow around so I was able to draw the corner of the barn.

I felt fairly confident in what I'd drawn only to find it was very inaccurate when I drew on the perspective lines.

The barn on the corner

The barn on the corner with perspective lines

Once again I can see clearly that it's not right but at the time I drew it looked OK.

I went back to the building and had a closer look (see photo).  There was snow on  the ground that stopped me getting a proper base line and the walls were well out of square which ever way I looked. However, all that did was to make me a more difficult job and I should have spotted the problems before I started.

I'm understanding 2 point perspective intellectually but practically I'm floundering.  Time for some practice.

I've found a  you tube video that gives me a bit of help (1) and so I'm going to give it a try because it means lots of practice so I might get my head around what I'm doing.

Cityscape after Tom MacPherson (1)

This was an excellent way to try lots of angles and I've gained a better understanding of what I'm doing and why.  I've been unexpectedly plunged back to my schooldays when my constant question in maths was "why" or "how" and I've realised that what I've been doing is very maths based.

I'm hoping that the work I've done will give me a good grounding for the townscapes that are coming up in the Project 5.

My next task in this exercise is to check the accuracy of the perspective in a drawing by Sir Muirhead Bone.  Rome was sketched in pencil in 1910.

From OCA manual

I was asked to copy a simplified version of this image then superimpose the perspective lines.  I stared at my blank paper for ages and simply couldn't fathom out where to start so I took a photocopy and used that.

The accuracy of the drawing is variable - some windows are out of alignment and there are lots of curves around.  The perspective lines are all in the same general area so I am beginning to conclude that "good enough" is OK although in a sketch.  That's not to say it should be sloppy!  An architectural drawing would need to be much more accurate but then it wouldn't need to be sensitive as this sketch is.  Horses for courses I think.


(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNq78n02fMQ

Part 3 Project 4 Ex 1

Parallel perspective - an interior view

I find perspective both intriguing and difficult especially when I'm indoors.  It seems like ages ago that I did a sketch looking from the hall into the kitchen and found it tricky:

I decided to try a similar but less complicated drawing for this exercise.  I sat at the point in my sketch where the door in the mid distance is open but found I couldn't get the scale right never mind the perspective.   As I discouraged from using an eraser and my mistakes were starting to lead me astray I abandoned this sketch having learnt that I need to measure to get the proportions right.

I realise that the door frame isn't tall enough and the fridge is too broad and squat.  The distance between me and the fridge is too big.  It's a mess but I did come to know that I learnt my lesson about the difference between guesswork and measuring!

I simply turned round my chair and drew the view into the hallway.  This time I did lots of squinting and holding up my pencil to get the proportions right.  I'm always amazed that in the distance things look much smaller that I think particularly when they are foreshortened (like the rug in my sketch).

The view into the hall marked with my eye level

I did my best to draw what I saw and had the make some adjustments particularly with the skirting board in the foreground.  Next I put on the perspective lines - how wrong can you be?

I superimposed perspective lines

I began my lines by putting in the sides of the hall as my markers (purple) and found that I wasn't too bad on the right but the left was miles out.  Where the hall receeds through the opening the skirting boards weren't at a sharp enough angle.  However, the rug I struggled with wasn't too bad.  The changes to the floorboards and the slate tiles prompted me to look at the foreshortening in the foreground and I put these on the drawing with darker pencil marks.

Foreshortening of the slate tiles in the foreground.

This work has serious implications for the drawing of buildings and townscapes that are fast approaching.  I'm not sure how to apply this from a practical point of view but I can foresee that starting with a level and some basic perspective lines might be a way to go.

Part 3 Project 3 Ex 1 & 2 Reflection

I am required to reflect on the last two exercises and there are four points for me to consider.

Ex 1 - Wintry Landscape

Ex 2 - Trent Valley Pylons

How did you simplify and select?  Were you able to focus on simple shapes and patterns amid all the visual information available to you?

I used my viewfinder to make my selections.  My part of the country is very flat and at first I was unsure how to make an interesting composition. I found things like the tree and the blue bale of hay made a focal point and were balanced by the poles carrying cables.  In Wintry Landscape the watercolour I used forced me to think in blocks of shape.  I didn't draw trees or hedges I simply made marks that looked like them.

How did you create a sense of distance and form?

In Ex 1 I used the idea of things getting smaller as they get further away.  For instance the lane and the poles seem to recede into the distance.  I used marks to depict landmarks and colour to shape things a bit.  The lane was very wet and I used a little Payne's Grey on a brush that I rolled across the paper to leave white patches that look like the wet tarmac.

Were you able to use light and shade successfully?

I struggled with this a bit.  The weather was generally dreary so there was not much by way of clear shadows. However, I noticed that the bottom of the hedges was usually much darker than the top and indentation on the ground gave a darker tone (tractor tyre marks Ex 2).

What additional preliminary work would have been helpful towards the larger study?

I felt very hampered by the weather during this work.  It would have been lovely to work outside much more.  My water soluble pencils didn't arrive until my work was finished so I still have to play with them and see what they can do.  

Part 3 Project 3 Ex 2

Foreground, middle ground, background.

I changed the position of the pylons
in my drawing to try to get distance

The area I live in is quite flat and some might say uninteresting.  I might have said so myself until I started to do sketches and think about composition.  At first I was troubled because it was hard to find a focal point but I have realised that a focus can be anything not necessarily something really powerful like a building or a beautiful tree.

In this drawing the focus is the pylons which disappear into the distance and diminish in clarity.  In the foreground is a hedge which is covered in dead goose grass and a track that has been churned up by tractor tyres. In the mid ground is a ploughed  field and beyond the hedge a grassy field.  In the far distance the hills at the edge of the valley.

The image is developed from one of my 360 deg sketches but taken from a slightly different angle. I went back to do some checking on the pylons and look at the perspective more closely.   I took the photo above and worked from that but tried to incorporate the feel of my original sketch with the towering pylons.

I went to the site just before mid day and it was bright and very windy - I had a hard job to stand up. The sun shone on the pylons and cast a shadow from the near hedge.

.

The image here is cropped simply because my scanner is A4.  In the original (A3) there is a large puddle in the immediate foreground that is only just evident on the left here.

Trent Valley Pylons

I used graphite pencils on cartridge paper.  My manual suggested I should try water soluble graphite but I haven't any at the moment. I used charcoal for the sky and smudged it vigorously.

I tried to capture the expansiveness and the bleakness of the scene and I think monochrome helped with this. I didn't want to draw images of hedges, trees, grass and so on but to represent them with suitable marks rather in the way that van Gogh did in my previous post. I also tried to use the rough paper to get texture and tone as Seurat did.  The ploughed field worked well in this respect. The detail below clearly shows how I managed to get the pencil to skip over the paper leaving white paper visible.

Trent Valley Pylons - ploughed field detail

This is the first drawing I've done where I've manipulated the scene to suit my purposes (I wanted the pylons to indicate distance).

Part 3 Project 3 Research Point 2

This research point asks me to compare the approach of some contemporary landscape artists. It is suggested that I start by looking at Tacita Dean's blackboard drawings and Seurat's Landscape with Houses.

Seurat I have come across often but Tacita Dean is an unknown quantity so I'll investigate her work first.

Tacita Dean b1965 - 

Tacita Dean (1)

Dean used chalk in her earlier career then moved on to work in film.  After a ten year gap she returned to chalk and drew Fatigues in 2012.  Nothing unusual there except that this work was truly monumental in size. What is amazing is that the space available was a two story building. The work depicted the mountain peaks of Hindu Kush slowly moving down into the space as descending rivers, snow melt and eventually flood; the bringer and taker of life.

Fatigues - Tacita Dean 2012 (2)

The images are awe inspiring as individual works but together they must be wonderful as they tell a story.

Fatigues (detail) - Tacita Dean. 2012 (3)

If ever there was an object lesson in tone it is in this work.

But how does it compare to Seurat?

Georges Seurat - 1859-1891

Georges Seurat - self portrait (4)

My notes suggest that I look at Seurat's Landscape with Houses:

Landscape with Houses - Georges Seurat.  1881-2
Conte crayon. 10x 12.5 inches (5)

I have looked at Pointillism in the past and admired the use of colour but been unaware that Seurat drew so beautifully as well.  I can't really see in a detailed way how the marks are made but there are quite wild ones on the left that I think might be tree branches.  There are trees in the background and the whole image is very hazy and indistinct and the foreground lacks detail when you might expect something different.

Margaret Davidson (2011) believes that Seurat was the first artist to explore the way the medium and the paper interrelated.  Seurat experimented with textured paper and crayon to produce a speckly, broken tone.

Davidson says this technique works in 3 ways

• It prevents strokes from being too detailed or too refined
• It requires the artist to draw form according to light and shadow ... and not according to an outer edge, contour or detail
• It forces every crayon stroke to break into dots of black and white. 

This technique is very definitely Seurat's as no other artist has developed it (Davidson, 2011).

Whilst I was looking at these I was reminded of the landscapes of van Gogh so I decided to incorporate one into my comparison:

Farmhouse with Wheatfield along a Road- van Gogh, 1888 (6)

This work by van Gogh is everything I wish I could do.  The marks are deceptively simple but the wheat  is rhythmical as blows in the wind.  There is the portrayal of distance and the trees on the horizon become just smudges.

I recently became acquainted with the atmospheric landscapes of Nicholas Herbert so I've compared one of his drawings as well. L774 has the same feel as the Landscape with Houses; hazy and difficult to grasp.

L774 The Chiltern Hills - Nicholas Herbert. 2014 (7)

Herbert's work seems very spontaneous and immediate.  I find it quite inspirational but it seems well beyond me right now.

For the sake of clarity I've used a table to identify the similarities and differences between these artists and their work.

	Fatigue	Landscape with Houses	Wheatfield	L774 Herbert
Monochrome	x	x	some brown ink	x
Large	x
Small		x	x	x
Chalk	x
Conte crayon		x
Acrylic				x
Soluble crayon				x
Pencil			x	x
Pen			x
Panoramic	x
Mid view			x	x
Close up view		x
Tonal	x	x	x	x
Artist uses other media	x	x	x
Paper		x	x	x
Board	x
Quick sketch		x	x	x
Lengthy endeavour	x

It has been interesting to compare work in this way and find the only similarity across all the pieces is tonality.


Davidson, M. (2011) Contemporary Drawing. Watson Guptill, New York.

(1) http://arteseanp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/tacita-dean.html
(2) http://vmagazine.com/site/content/639/analog-dream
(3) www.mariangoodman.com
(4) http://wortleyvillage.net/postimp/G_Seurat/indexB.html
(5) http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/337676
(6) http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/Drawing/912/Farmhouse-with-Wheat-Field-along-a-Road.html
(7) https://nicholasherbert.wordpress.com/

Part 3 Project 3 Ex 1

I've made a shortlist of images I might develop and I plan to look at them with the previous post in mind. That is - I will consciously look at the composition rather than let it just happen (or not).

Here the horizon is in the centre and that is solely due to my being sat in the car.  If I stood it would be lower. A way round this would be to crop the sketch and reduce the foreground.

This follows the Rule of Three rather better but I think it loses the expansiveness of the scene and the long sweep of the lane.  It loses the leading lines.  If I use this I'll have to go back and try another sketch and try a different viewpoint.  I might be able to go nearer the hedge as well if the weather improves and I can get out of the car for a few minutes.

Again the horizon is pretty well in the centre but this time there is not such a bend in the lane so the leading lines of the lane are much more vertical.  I can't crop this because I would lose the plastic covered bale and that (and the tree) balances up the hedge and the poles.  Again a site visit is necessary if I am to pursue this sketch.

It is now some time since I wrote the paragraphs above because I've been away and Christmas activities are building up.  I took the opportunity this lovely sunny morning to pay a visit to the place where I made these sketches.  I got out of the car and had a wander up and down and still settled on the view I had sketched.  I took a photo.

I have become very interested in pursuing water colour drawing and I thought I'd have a go at this.  I have learned that water colours need planning so I made a plan that involved working out which panels should be painted first.  I did them in this order:

1. sky
2. tarmac lane
3. green verges
4. far horizon
5. mid distance 
6. hedge
7. the rest

and it worked out OK.

Wintry Landscape

From the point of view of composition I'm fairly happy.  The tones on either side of the lane balance and the power lines and the tree do the same.  The vectors take the viewer through the image to the horizon way in the distance.

The lane was very wet, flooded in parts, and I'm pleased that the water is evident on the road.  I'm also unexpectedly pleased with the deep ditch on the left, it has worked better than I had anticipated.  I like the textures I've managed to achieve but the grass could do with a bit more work.

On reflection I think this piece is a bit too busy for me to manage at my very inexperienced stage.  I have made some crops that simplify things a bit.

Not quite balanced

I still need the tree

I think I prefer the full version.  I enjoyed doing this and I've learned a lot about what's realistic for me to do using the skills I have.

Part 3 Project 3 Research Point 1

In this section I have to look at various theories of composition.  In a previous post (Part 2 Project 1 Composition 1)  I unwittingly jumped the gun and looked at this subject.  I covered the drawing position of the artist, the Golden Triangle, vectors and balance. What I didn't cover was the Rule of Thirds and one or two others I've found.

I've used this website because its examples are very good:

 http://www.slideshare.net/mrsbauerart/theories-of-composition

The Rule of Thirds

Basically this theory divides the page into thirds both horizontally and vertically.  

The Biglen Brothers Racing - Thomas Eakins, 1873 (1)

The Biglen Brothers Racing shows this rule very well.  The action is all on the grid lines, the treeline, the boat and the positioning of the rowers.  The points of intersection are particularly good places to position items of importance.

This left me wondering how my work fits in with this rule.  I took a sketch that I was pleased with and worked well compositionally and drew grid lines on it.

The Rule of Thirds

This isn't as obvious as the Biglin Brothers.  I can see that the centre of the upper window is bisected as is the top of the lower window.  The lower window also aligns with the right hand line.  The centre sector holds equal parts of the sail and the brickwork which I think is a sort of mini balance.  I'm not sure how the sail stacks up with the theory but for me it works on an intuitive basis.

Rule of Odds

This is a rule that works for flower arranging, interior decor and all manner of arrangements.  If there are three (or any odd number) of items the eye cannot settle into grouping so it continues to rove around the picture.

King Charles I of England - 1635-36 Anthony van Dyck (1)

This is an interesting picture in several ways.  First the Rule of Odds clearly applies and I can see the Rule of Three as well.  The painting is actually three portraits of the King in three different profiles. In each one he is dressed differently but with the same collar.  I wonder if he was unhappy with the profile on the right or whether it was van Dyke's artistry that put him slightly off square?

Rule of Odds

Although this is by no means the same sort of image I can see that it is based on groups of three; settee, table, curtain.  And taken a further step; table top, tissues, vase.  Once again this is intuitive rather than deliberate and I suppose the skill is in the recognition and then the application of the theory.

The website I have used for this work also talks of "leading lines" and "diagonal lines".  This is where the eye is guided by what is on the image.  This is what is my previous work I learnt were called "vectors". Whatever name they go by the effect is one of distance.

Provencher's  Mill at Moret - 1883 Alfred Sisley. 

Sisley's work has several strong leads towards the horizon; the buildings, the bank, the river bed and the bank on the right of the picture.  Everything leads to the tall tree on the horizon.

I haven't done many landscapes but I've done a bit of a search for vectors in some recent ones:

Leading lines

I'm not arrogant enough to compare myself to Sisley but this image also has many leading lines to take the eye into the distance.  There is a very clear point at which they converge and that is indicated by the diminishing height of the trees and the tapering of the road.

Leading lines

This works in the same way with lots of indicators pointing to distance although this one takes the viewer round a bend rather than to the horizon.

Leading lines

The windmill is a different proposition entirely although I can see leading lines in the way the black building takes us upwards to the sails.  The sails are on the diagonal and are all at different angles.  I think this gives a feeling of movement.

Lines of sight

Lines of sight are when the painter has the subject looking at something in the distance arousing the viewers curiosity to look as well.

Christina's World, 1948 - Andrew Wyeth

I know nothing about this painting but I feel a tension created by the way the artist has the subject almost prone looking apprehensively (?) at the house.  There is the option to follow the paler line and go to the barn but the focus is very clearly on the house.  There is a feeling of being adrift in a large space and what lies beyond?  Sea, sky, who knows?  It's very unsettling.

I was moved to look up some information about the painting:

The woman in the painting is Anna Christina Olson (3 May 1893 – 27 January 1968). She is known to have suffered from polio, a muscular deterioration that paralysed her lower body. Wyeth was inspired to create the painting when he saw her crawling across a field while watching from a window in the house. (2) 

As something of an afterthought the Rule of Odds applies here.

I have no drawings that use this device but I can see the dramatic potential.

Simplify

This idea as a compositional device is new to me but very appealing.  The example the website uses is by Turner and just stunning.  It's hard to believe it was painted nearly 200 years ago.

Colour Beginning 1819 - J M W Turner.

The Tate was left this work in the Turner bequest and has several similar which seem to be underwashes.  I have asked people what they see in Colour Beginnings and each one sees something different. I think it's dawn but maybe Turner intended to be non specific.

The Rule of Thirds is evident but only in the horizontal plane.

I know how hard it can be to get water colour to blend just right but a painting I did with Stephen Coates emphasises simplicity:  

Simplicity - colour wash and red sail

Here there is no horizon just a graduated wash.  The side ripples in Payne's Grey give the picture some depth.

The learning from this additional work is important not only for its intrinsic merit but for the confidence boosting value as well.  Whilst my academic learning no doubt filters in I find that I have been using these principles intuitively rather than by design.  I need to pay much more heed when I set up a drawing and consciously think about what I'm doing not just "allow" it to happen.

(1) http://www.slideshare.net/mrsbauerart/theories-of-composition

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina%27s_World