Category: Sketchbook Pages

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Art theory Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Early Theory of Perspective

Illustration Friday

Early Theory of Perspective

  1. The world is flat and ends at the horizon.
  2. As you get closer to the horizon you get smaller and smaller until….
  3. You fall off the edge and disappear…
  4. And that’s why it’s called the “vanishing point.”

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge is the word “Theory.” Since I’ve been re-learning perspective and reading about the progression of artists’ attempts to create the illusion of depth and space, I thought I’d propose my own history of what the earliest thoughts about perspective might have been.

My continuing exploration of perspective has led to me making a fool of myself as I walk around, closing one eye and putting my hands up to match the angles on buildings and trees as I look for vanishing points and check how angles and lines relate to one another.

I tried to demonstrate to some co-workers as we went out foraging for lunch how the horizon is relative to the individual viewing it, not a fixed location. Nobody was going for it though, either trying to prove me wrong or having more important things to think about, like whether they were in the mood for soup or salad.

Here’s what my favorite book (so far) on perspective says about the horizon:

Eye level rises and falls with the level of your eye, wheher you are down near the floor, sitting, standing, in a tall building, or in an airplane. The eye-level plane extends an infinite distance in all directions and at a remote distance coincides with the horizon, which the eye level is often called.

I can’t really explain why this concept so intrigues me, but I just can’t get over it. I loved the way Brittney Gilbert, writer of CBS5.com’s blog “Eye on Blogs,” titled her link to my recent post: “The Horizon is You-Dependent.”

It just makes me wonder what other facts of life that I’ve taken for granted are only perceptual, not actual. Is reality completely subjective?

Categories
Art theory Drawing Landscape Plein Air Sketchbook Pages

Back to Basics: Perspective

20080212-perspective1

Pencil sketch, 9×12 (larger)

I studied perspective in college drawing class but didn’t completely understand it, didn’t like it, and thought I had little use for it. Years later my friend Barbara gave me a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. In that wonderful book, the author offers a more “right-brained” way to work with perspective, using a variety of strategies that allow one to see angles and shapes without having to use more “left-brained” techniques like 2-point perspective.

It gave me what I needed to draw well enough to get by, and I came to appreciate my slightly wonky style of drawing. It worked just fine for free-spirited sketches or paintings. When I needed something to be drawn accurately (as the basis for a realistic watercolor, for example), I would either grid it up, trace the enlarged photo onto watercolor paper, or draw/erase/draw/erase first on tracing paper until I got it right and then trace that onto watercolor paper.
20080212-perspective6

I got confused in this one…it has several problems

But plein air painting, which I’ve become passionate about, requires a quick accurate drawing in order to start and finish a painting within 2-3 hours max. After that time the light changes so much that colors, shadows, and anything moving (clouds, creatures, water) are completely different. Starting with a bad drawing dooms the painting right from the start. I needed to go back to basics and get a grip on perspective.

I grabbed Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson, read the section on perspective and started sketching stacked up childrens blocks, stuff in my house, and from my imagination, trying to understand perspective.

20080212-perspective3

Here’s something I didn’t know before: The horizon is always at your eye level. The horizon line (e.g. where the sky meets the land or the sea) is actually what you see when looking straight ahead at your eye level, whether you’re sitting, standing, or lying on the ground. I find that really amazing — it just seems so self-centered, somehow.

20080212-perspective5

(I drew eyeballs on this one to remind me of my point of view/horizon)

A few things still confused me so I did some more research on the web and found two helpful sites with good information. How to Draw and Paint, offers a couple of basic, easy to understand articles about perspective. Ralph Larmann’s Art Studio Chalkboard from the University of Evansville goes into more technical detail and provided answers to the things that were confusing me (like what happens when the object straddles the horizon, or the object is at an angle, like peaked roofs, or the ground is hilly).
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I’m going to do some more practicing using what I’ve printed out from those two sites. I also picked up an excellent book from the library: Perspective Drawing by Kenneth Auvil, which is actually fun and interesting reading. Any other suggestions for improving linear perspective drawing would be gratefully accepted.

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Life in general Sketchbook Pages

Maybe it’s time to kick the coffee habit (again)

Peet's Coffee

Ink, 3.5″x4.75″ (Larger)

I sketched this at Peets when I stopped to pick up some coffee beans, now that my grinder is working again. It’s in my new combo wallet/sketchbook. I visited my local stationary store looking for a small binder to use as a sketchbook and the owner offered me this little Filofax for only $5.00 since someone had returned it. It’s a perfect wallet (even a zipper section for change) and has rings to hold nice paper. See the bottom of this post for photos of it.

The problem with being addicted to a morning cup of coffee is that I wake up stupid and dysfunctional until I’ve had my cup. This is dangerous since making the coffee involves handling scalding liquids, equipment with motors and sharp blades (to grind the coffee), drip filter holders that can be easily knocked over, and carrying cups of milky coffee across the room with shaky hands. I’ve encountered disasters with all of the above.

To read the rest of this post and see the wallet/sketchbook photos, click “Continue Reading” below:

Continue reading “Maybe it’s time to kick the coffee habit (again)”
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Drawing Dreams Life in general Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Dreams: Definitely not on the best dressed list

20080208-Macys

Ink and watercolor in 5.5″ square sketchbook (larger)

Last night I dreamt first that I was shopping in Macy’s and a snooty salesman looked me up and down and made fun of what I was wearing. He offered to help me dress better and recommended $100 flip-flops with made of thin green nylon (like they make sleeping bags from) with criss-crossed shoelaces that held the flimsy things on your feet.

“The latest thing,” he told me. I wasn’t going for it.

Carrying on the poorly-dressed theme, the next dream was that I was wandering around Los Angeles, looking for a bus to Santa Monica (a suburb of LA where my mother lives) wearing only a large (but not large enough) shirt.

20080208-shirt-only

(larger)

I wasn’t terribly embarrassed by this partial nudity, having gotten used to it from all the time I’ve spent in previous dreams completely naked in public.

In real life, I don’t go out naked, though I did spend a summer nude in the early ’70s when I was 22, camping with 6 friends at a beautiful spot in the Siskiyou National Forest, 10 miles down a dirt road from the town of Happy Camp. The temperature in the afternoons reached 117 so nudity seemed pretty reasonable.

Running by our campsite was the perfectly named Clear Creek which fed into a wonderful swimming hole surrounded by huge boulders, perfect for lying on and diving off of.

We were the only ones there during the weekdays but on the weekends the occasional truckload of Native Americans from the nearby reservation would come out to swim or a family might camp for the weekend. The guys in our group would put on bathing suits when we had visitors but us hippie girls stayed au naturel for the duration and nobody seemed to mind.

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Cartoon art Colored pencil art Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Hamster Brain, Part Two

Silence of the Hamsters

Ink, colored pencil & watercolor in 9×12 sketchbook (Larger)

In yesterday’s post I wrote about what I call “Hamster Brain” (when my mind gets stuck spinning in a hamster wheel of “shoulds” and I can’t figure out what to do next and so do nothing). I was going through an old sketchbook and found this illustration I did in 1999 on a similar day of “my brain on hamsters.”

When I read the journal entry it was interesting to see that I’d figured out back then what was really going: a fear of not having enough: not enough time, and maybe not enough talent or skill either as I faced the artist’s version of writer’s block…that icky fear that seems to come around when I finish one project and am faced with the blank canvas/sheet of paper. I’ve learned to encourage myself and turn off those critical voices but every once in awhile they sneak up and get me when I’m not looking.

Today was so much more enjoyable,  even though it was pouring down rain. I did my errands, went to the gym, and painted. Sometimes it takes a hamster-brained day like yesterday to make me really appreciate an ordinary day that is joyous just by the absence of negativity and blocks.

Categories
Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Stanley 93E Box Cutter & Polish

Stanley 93E & Polish

Watercolor on hot press paper, 5 x 7″ (Larger)

Yesterday at work someone had left a strange little still-life set up on a table in the ladies restroom: a little cosmetic bag and a a heavy metal box cutter (well, to me it looked like a still life, probably nobody else would have thought so). I recreated it on my drawing table tonight, adding a bottle of nail polish that I keep in a similar cosmetic bag.

I like the way the box cutter came out looking like a fish with a little rooster comb on top (the brass thingee you push to move the blade in and out). It felt so good to do this painting after a frustrating day in which I never made it out of my pajamas.

Hamster Brain Part One

Fridays I work half a day from home, but today the half day stretched out into the late afternoon, due to problems needing my attention and because I got a late start due to spending a frustrating hour trying to reassemble my wonderful Capresso coffee grinder after finally receiving the missing part in the mail (it had fallen on the floor when I cleaned the grinder, and was promptly stolen and hidden by my plastic-gizmo loving calico cat Fiona). It turns out I’d put the burr grinder piece in wrong and it was jammed and I could not remove it and so the bean hopper wouldn’t screw back in on top. Now the whole thing needs to go back to Capresso for repair. Makes me think it’s time to give up coffee (again!).

It was the first sunny day in a long time and I wanted to get outdoors and paint…and I needed to get some exercise…and I had some errands and phone calls to make. Plus I had a bunch of studio art projects I wanted to do — some dream paintings, color exercises, and this one.

I got into one of those stuck places, going around in circles…I’ll go to the gym first, no to the store first, no outside to paint first, but really I should vacuum…I’ll just check my email….and around and around. I call it Hamster Brain, since it feels like running in one of those hamster wheels.

Finally, at 8:00 P.M. I pulled myself out of it, did about half an hour of Pilates (while simultaneously putting in my weekly call to my mother) and having accomplished both those things, got to my drawing table and made this picture. Now it’s 11:00 p.m. and I’m free! My weekend has begun and it will joyfully include exercise, painting, and as little erranding and hamstering as possible!

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Every Day Matters Faces Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

13 minutes, 4 commuters, politics and art books

Ink in 6×9 sketchbook (Larger)

On my way home from work tonight I intended to continue reading Hensche on Painting (about an American Impressionist painter and his teachings about seeing and painting color under the influence of light). But the BART train was full of fascinating faces and I had to sketch instead. There are four stops between my office and home. The person in the seat two rows ahead of me was replaced at each stop, which made for a wonderfully random assortment of models, with 2 to 4 minutes each to draw them.

Tonight my painting group was here and we talked about whether we were going to vote for Hillary or Obama. As I wrote that sentence, I realized that it doesn’t feel right to call her by her last name or to call him by his first name. I wonder what that means and if it’s unconsciously sexist of me? Or is that I didn’t know how to spell Barack and had to look it up, even though I’ve seen it a hundred times already? Or is it because when I think “Clinton” I think of her hubby?

Susie has been reading Obama’s first book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, about his life pre-candidacy and it has convinced her to vote for him. I’m going to download it from Audible.com and listen to it.

Tomorrow night (Thursday) is the California debate between the two of them, and although I don’t get CNN on my TV, they are streaming the debates live on CNN.com so I will watch it on my computer. Then I’ll make my decision and mail in my absentee ballot. (I like pretending that my vote actually matters.)

I’m just looking forward to the end of the Bush era and not having to run to turn off the sound when he’s on the radio or TV.

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Cartoon art Life in general Sketchbook Pages

No computer – going cold turkey

no-computer1.jpg

This is me going cold turkey, hands shaking, reaching out for the keyboard that isn’t there. Drawn with a Sharpie on a yellow legal pad before leaving the office at 8:00 p.m. and colored in Photoshop.

My sturdy laptop crashed Friday night after I installed Outlook (I HATE MICROSOFT!). I was able to apply a bit of first aid and kept it limping along, until I could get it to the emergency room today (the computer tech’s office at work) . With his wonderful bedside manner he applied his warm stethoscope, ran a few tests and shook his head sadly.

The only solution seems to be a lobotomy…a thorough brain washing…in other words, a complete reformat of the hard drive and reinstallation of the operating system and all the software and files. It’s going to take a few days.

Since I might not be able to post or visit blogs for a few days, I made this quick sketch of me to post before leaving work. I was thinking it might be kind of nice to have no computer at home, that maybe I’d do some painting after work.

Except now, after finishing my work at around 7:00, it’s already nearly 8:00 p.m. and I’m still at work. By the time I commute home in the freezing rain and have dinner, it will practically be time for bed.

Things to be grateful for:

  1. Excellent technical support at work so I don’t have to do all the work of the reinstall, just some of it.
  2. A nice clean reinstall so the computer should be like new again.
  3. I didn’t get in trouble for installing Outlook (which I need to synch my iPhone with my calendar and address book but which my company doesn’t support because it’s too full of security holes that most viruses are specifically written for).
  4. It will be warm and cozy when I get home all wet and cold.
  5. I finally caught up on all my email at work today.
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Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Karma & How to Remove Oil Paint from Cat Paws

Ink & watercolor in handmade sketchbook

This evening Busby, my tabby cat, walked across four freshly oil-paint primed panels on my work table, each footstep lifting the paint right off the panel. There were painted footprints across the table, on a chair and along the floor leading to his usual hiding spot in the corner of my closet. He was curled up for a nap, his paws covered in paint.

Since cats lick their paws so you can’t use anything toxic (and fortunately the paint he stepped in wasn’t toxic–Titanium white). I found a solution that worked. (Disclaimer: I haven’t checked this with a veterinarian):

  1. Use canola, olive or other vegetable oil on the paws like a soap to moisten and loosen the paint.
  2. Rub paws and fur around them with paper towels to remove the paint.
  3. Put dish soap on a cloth and get it wet and sudsy and then rub paws with that to remove the oil and any remaining paint.
  4. Rinse paws under the faucet (or with a soap free wet cloth).
  5. Dry them with a towel and/or a hair dryer (optional).

This was just the last in a series of things that have gone wrong since Friday night when I did something I wasn’t proud of (minor but still….) and immediately thought of karma and wondered how it would affect me. Here’s what’s happened since then:

  1. I bought Microsoft Outlook to use with my new, fabulous iPhone so that I could upload to it my address book and calendar on my computer (currently in Palm software). I installed it on my computer which now crashes on startup and won’t allow me to login as me.
  2. My clock radio decided to die last night, repeatedly waking me with annoying buzzing sounds. The first time I jiggled it and it stopped (midnight). The second time I pulled out the battery and it stopped (1:00 AM). The third time I unplugged it and threw it in the trash. I set the alarm on my iPhone to wake me at 7:00 so I could make it my painting class in Petaluma.
  3. I woke up dazed and exhausted, and decided not to go to class. I went in the kitchen to make coffee. My coffee grinder was making a funny noise so I decided to clean it out, thinking there was finely ground coffee clogging it up. I took off the hopper and tilted the grinder and a little silicon sleeve fell out. I thought I put it aside to finish cleaning the grinder itself.When I was ready to clean the little silicon thingee it was gone. I spent an hour, seriously undercaffeinated and underslept, trying unsuccessfully to find it. I pulled out the trash can, thinking it might have fallen in there. As I sorted through the fish bones, old coffee grinds, and vegetable slime I came across my old friend the clock radio and thought of karma yet again.

    I never did find the silicon gizmo (my Calico cat Fiona loves playing with and hiding anything plastic that falls on the floor so maybe she stole it) but fortunately found the phone number of the manufacturer who agreed to mail me a new gizmo one within a week.

  4. I dug out my old little coffee grinder, which of course wouldn’t work. After I messed with it for half an hour, I finally got the little blades to spin. At last I had my coffee but by now it was nearly 11.
  5. Instead of having the day to do the creative art projects I’d planned, I was too sleep-deprived to do anything but mindless tasks like priming canvases.

I’ll spare you the details of the rest of the day. I think tomorrow I’ll see if I can’t undo my (minor) foul deed to halt this march of karma. Do you believe in karma?

Categories
Gouache Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages

Dinner at Costco: So much for my good attitude…

Dinner at Costco

Ink & gouache in sketchbook (larger)

Well, so much for yesterday’s Pollyana attitude of gratitude. Now I’m mad!

After working half the day I headed out to do errands, including shopping for new car tires. After going to the library, the Toyota dealer and another tire shop, I ended up at Costco. Normally I’m a big fan of Costco as they have reliably high quality products at excellent prices, but it’s not a place I’d ever chose to eat dinner.

Unfortunately I was stuck there for over three hours waiting for my tires to be installed, only to learn that they’d made a mistake and the tires they’d sold me were the wrong tires that didn’t fit my car.

Click “continue reading” below to read the rest of my rant:

Continue reading “Dinner at Costco: So much for my good attitude…”