Traditional art

Perspective & Composition

Submission Pieces

☆*Go to Life Drawing*☆

Throughout this block, I have also attended life drawing sessions at the Drawing Centre to compliment my traditional coursework. These were the very first sessions I have ever drawn the human figure from life. I have included them in a separate folder because I plan to continue going to these sessions after this block and would prefer to keep them in a place that is easy to track my progress.

Initial Thoughts

I have always struggled to stay focused when drawing buildings. they require so many lines and patterns and sense of scale that I have often given up trying to finish any studies of buildings in the past. I am glad that now I will have a motive to push forward and finish studies of environments, despite it not being my preferred subject to draw or design. This way I am forced to go outside of my comfort zone and this will inevitably improve my drawing in all areas. it will also definitely help me to organise and plan for busier scenes in the future because environment studies require you to think about how the whole piece works in unison rather than objects independent of each other.

Introduction to 3-Point Perspective

Week 1- Practice Session

The book: 'Framed Perspective Vol.1 by Marcos Mateu-Mestre'

the most usefull bit in this book for the current practical was the very last topic explained in the book; drawing architecture from life.

Note from book : To draw a cityscape, as usual first identify a line that is key to the whole composition, a line that gives something to build around, a sense of inclination and therefore perspective.

We walked around campus trying to draw the buildings in our surroundings.

Perspective Grids

Week 2 - Assessable Component

To apply our knowledge of two-point and three-point perspective, we went to the Queen's building to study it's complex interior. We walked around the building to experiment with different compositions as we drew a collection of thumbnails to analyse the best composition before moving onto starting our official assessable pieces. It was quite interesting to use perspective grids to indicate perspective so quickly and easily. as usual, I was feeling quite indecisive about what composition I should commit to so I drew three extra thumbnails. By the end of it all, I decided to choose my first composition (top right) with the big circular window and the high angle perspective.

Multiple images of the location we explored.

Planning compositions in thumbnails. These where drawn from life and not from photographs. I used simple perspective grids to get the perspective down quickly withought the need for complete horrizon lines or vanishing points.

reference image of the location I decided to study.

the thumbnail I liked best. (very funny in comparison to the reference image)

Studying this interior proved challenging. The abundance of lines and walls with different vanishing points - along with the geometric precision - made spotting mistakes easy but avoiding or concealing them difficult. Since we are working in a large scale, we have to rely on our prespective grids. Despite this, however, I found it odd to have to estimate the extent with which the lines on the grid grew in steepness because I wasn't sure how far away the vanishing points were. because of this uncertainty, I started to rely quite heavily on my reference image rather than committing to my established perspective grid.

In the first image you can see that the lines on the right wall are inconsistent because I tried to create a perspective grid but had no vanishing point to aim at; leading to some lines accelerating in steepness far more than the ones next to it. I guess this can be corrected by trial and error but I must admit that I mostly used my reference to correct them rather than reflecting on my own lines. In the second image I started adding some basic values to start organising the chaos.

I shaded according to their material and closeness to the camera. this was not easy at all. Sometimes I would shade in an area but then realise the perspective is inaccurate and so I would have to erase it and it would leave a distracting line amidst the hatching. At other times, I struggled to balance definition and values. When I wanted to define an edge, I would often shade it in too dark, and when I did manage to reach the correct value the definition of the line would be too fuzzy.

I started to render the wall on the right using hatching lines to start building the values and contrast of the light from the ceiling and the bright circular window. once I filled the space with a darker value, I realised how large I drew the window. I think I did this instinctively because it was the area I was most interested in within this composition and it is what was most memorable when inside the Queens building. It is eyecatching because it holds the most contrast of light and dark, and it is an organic shape amidst many geometric and angular patterns within the interior architecture. When composing the layout, I made sure to situate the window on an intersecting line of thirds.

You can see in the left process picture how I have redrawn the brick pattern many times because either it wasn't matching the contour lines of the wall, or the bricks where drawn too thick which broke the illusion of it being further away. since I was away for christmas, I didn't have my drawing board, causing a lot of distortion to happen whilst drawing on a flat surface. This wasn't too much of a problem but it did lead me to draw the bricks on the walls incorrectly several times.

At this stage of darkening and increacing contrast,I had to be very mindful with how hard I pressed when trying to achieve deeper values because the paper would become worn down if I decided to change it which would limit the ability to create small details and sharp edges.

Reflection

I found this task really tedious and I did not enjoy working on it as much as I was hoping to because it frustrated me more than it was worth. It took incredibly long to complete and it doesn't even leave me feeling inspired looking at it. I am proud that I pushed through and completed an environment piece at this scale but in the future, I should know that drawing a piece for the sake of replicating does not sustain my inspiration or motivation to keep going. I am aware that this study is to practice perspective but drawing it at such a large scale didn't feel like it was helping me improve my use of perspective but more of my use of value and aerial perspective to indicate scale (and my patience).

Pros

I would say my outcome is successful in showing my understanding of perspective and areal perspective and I rather enjoyed drawing the circle window because it's distortion fascinates me. I like how the bridge actually does look like it is lit up underneath. This is something I was worried about recreating because I didn't think I would be able to recreate it successfully.

things to improve

The ceiling feels a lot closer/ shorter than it is meant to be and I feel the perspective on the right bridge could have been more exaggerated because it is looking a little parallel. the perspective and quality of the content under the bridge is very poor and wobbly since it was an after thought and I didn't believe it needed much attention since it isn't the focus of this piece. I only wanted to include it to emphasis the height of the bridge rather than for it to be looked at independently.

Composition & Compositional Principles

Week 3 - Assessable Component

I drew a few thumbnails exploring different compositions and decided on a composition which consisted of a globe, a skull, a wooden hand, and a draped cloth over a box. I chose this composition at first because I really wanted to explore the different elevations this composition provided. I also found the objects interesting and I hadn't drawn any of them previously. I also felt drawn to including the cloth in the composition as it would give an added area of interest to the piece rather than having the objects all sit in a blank void.

despite my initial interest in this composition, however, I later came back to the thumbnails and no longer felt excited to go through with it. Instead, I decided to choose an entirely different selection of objects to draw but still keeping the cloth and varying elevations for my new composition. This proved more successful with thoughtful organization and a fluid transition between objects. To streamline the process, I cut out and collaged the chosen objects, avoiding the need to constantly reference multiple photographs.

It was slightly strange to return drawing small objects after working so long on a big environment piece. details are so much more important and I was now working with a lot more organic shapes than the mechanical and geometric straight lines of brick walls and bridge beams.

I got the base sketch down super quickly - which was a relief after such tedious and slow progress on my previous piece. This excitement, however, was a little too ambitious as I decided to go straight into rendering without being fully confident of the object's construction. Since I knew that core shadows are something I struggle with, I tried a different approach to rendering that I found other artists using online. I tried to replicate their workflow by shading in large areas of core shadows using a soft 2B pencil. (I included an example image of what I was trying to replicate on the right). Unfortunately, I would later erase this to suite my preferred method of rendering because I didn't manage to reproduce their method successfully. I must revisit this if I ever hope to learn this fundamental well.

I was really struggling to push through this stage where everything had the same values and it was all super grainy and fuzzy due to the initial attempt of adding core shadows. I was very relieved to have my piece looked at in class before I continued any further.

Kras mentioned quite a few things I should fix and/or change;

the ellipses and symmetry of the tall flowery flask was incorrect
the skull and teacup had weak construction; the nasal hole should be much larger
the handle should be taller and thinner. Since it is an elegant shape, make sure to recreate it's curves and delicate thin features.
the core shadows where wrong; the flask's core shadow should closely match that of a sphere's, the current render was only implying reflections rather than a core shadow
suggested I add more folds in the cloth to break the left side up into more manageable chunks rather than having a large mass of muddy mid tones.

Since I was back in class, I took out the teacup and analysed it's shape a bit more. this allowed me to notice a lot of errors I miss-read within my photograph. I also took additional photographs of the cloth being draped in different ways.

I actually just ended up drawing the cloth from imagination rather than following the reference I had taken. This probably lead the cloth to lack realism but I think it was useful to try drawing it myself.

Reflection

Medieval Houses

Week 4 - Practice Session

In this session, I wanted to analyse the roofs, windows and wall details of these 3D printed medieval houses to help my own shop design in digital art practices. I was exploring different ways of rendering roof tiles, incorporating wooden planks as an artistic design choice, and the tile's way of overlapping each other.

Compositional Landscapes

Week 5 - Assessable Component

This week we actually started the final piece of the houses we were studying last session. This assessable component also focuses on composition so we were encouraged to draw many thumbnails exploring different foliage/ objects to decorate our scene. I decided on my final thumbnail which has a massive tree behind the house, and two smaller clusters of foliage beside it; one medium sized and one small. I want to make these covered in snow so they will be drooping slightly from the weight of it.

Feedback:

The lines are too parallel which makes it look a little isometric. Despite it being a small house, you can make it look bigger by increasing the perspective you are observing
Check the construction of the round balkony base and make sure the tips of the triangular patters are alligned and centred in relation to their bases.

Parallel

intersecting

three-point perspective

I worked on these points and it really improved the appearance of my sketch.

Note to self from 'intersecting lines': I really like how only the details closest to us are darker than the rest (since it was the area I was working on) because it increases the sense of perspective. Make sure to keep this in mind when rendering to not overwork the entire building with details and value which will flatten it.

The hardest aspect about this piece was trying to imply a snowy scene on the building's rendering. It will already be difficult to create a snow setting from imagination but even harder to make this building fit into it since it is a monochromatic house and any change in value is assumed as a plane change.

[place holder]

Grade: 90/100 (+10% from Block 1)

Feedback:

I am really surprised I gained such a high mark for this block. I am super proud of the grade I achieved and was not expecting it at all but I know I can personally do so much better!! I can’t wait to continue progressing and improving my rendering and construction. In my feedback there are some notes on some minor anatomical erros I just want to go through with my Lecturer to make sure I avoid them in the future :)

foreshortening on the sharpener is not entirely correct
The vase is leaning slightly towards the right
skull could have been rendered much better to imply more texture.
keep blog up to date and even throughout the entire block

Up Next :

☆*Go to Digital Art*☆

Jump Ahead :

☆*Go to Game Production*☆

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