Monday 31 May 2010




Course work: A day of thunderstorms kept me mostly confined to the house. I did a four-part drawing of the large willow oak (43 meter spread) that dominates our view to the south, though I needed binoculars to see some of the branch details. Leaf detail was obtained from a smaller tree immediately adjacent to the house, at the expense of getting somewhat wet.

NOTE: I think I misunderstood the instructions for this series of drawings and have made three supplemental drawings on June 9 & 10 as corrections.



Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 3)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 6-17





Personal sketchbook work: A drawing of a reproduction of the head of the Egyptian god Bastet, done with marker and worked over with colored pencil. (This could be considered part of the statue drawing work, I suppose). The combination of techniques worked fairly well.

An eight-minute figure sketch from life, with a Conté pencil.

Total time: 1 hour 47 minutes

Sunday 30 May 2010




Course work: A four-part drawing of a pecan tree, done in charcoal. This particular specimen is about 15-20 years old, and is producing enough nuts to at least keep the squirrels and crows happy.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 710-715

(This completes my reading of Volume 2. I have acquired a Volume 3: curiously, about 40% of its content is duplicated in Volumes 1 and 2. I shall read the remainder.)



Margaret Livingstone Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing

Abrams, New York, 2002

Pp 100-137



Personal sketchbook work: An attempt at sketching some of our ever-enlarging plums with my old nemesis, markers, a medium I may never get to behave properly.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: Transitioning from buildings to trees has seemed fairly easy, since I prefer the latter. The biggest difficulty I’ve had has been in finding interesting trees isolated enough from others to permit good assessment of their forms, as our trees tend to grow intermingled in unorganized woodland. I’m still seeking an ideal one for the next part of the assignment. I’ve had a little difficulty in interpreting some of the instructions in the text, and have made my best guess at meaning.



Total time: 1 hour 34 minutes

Saturday 29 May 2010




Course work: Drew a loblolly pine with brush and ink. Since this tree has a very open branching pattern, it proved logical to show the leafing and branching pattern as a single drawing instead of as two.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 692-709



Personal sketchbook work: A drawing of a portion of the trunk of a lightning-blasted pine, done with dip pen and ink.

Total time: 1 hour 40 minutes (59h19m)

Friday 28 May 2010




A four-hour round-trip drive and a prolonged wait in a doctor’s office severely limited today’s activities.



Reading:



Anna Held Audet The Blank Canvas: Inviting the Muse

Shambhala, Boston& London, 1993

Pp 1-49



Total time: 27 minutes

Thursday 27 May 2010




Course work: A quadripartite drawing of an American red cedar (very common here). This particular one arises from two trunks, also a fairly common finding, and has the advantage of not being partially concealed by a mass of other trees. The foliage on these trees is very dense, and the branching pattern is difficult to follow beyond the first of second bifurcation. I drew a general outline of the tree, a larger outline with the shadows between the foliage masses indicated, the paired trunks and the lower branches, and some detail of the foliage, which is what I hope the somewhat confusing fourth part of the instructions means.

I then drew four images of a wild persimmon, also very common, almost to the extent of being a nuisance tree. These are densely-leaved deciduous trees, with somewhat serpentine branches that tend to be fairly long. The leaves are shiny and reflect sunlight strongly. In season, the fruit, barely edible by humans, is relished by wild animals, particularly coyotes.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 674-691



Personal sketchbook work: A graphite drawing of a cottontail rabbit that I photographed while out looking at trees last evening.

Total time: 2 hours 16 minutes

Wednesday 26 May 2010




Personal sketchbook work: Tried a rough self-portrait in black, white, and grey pastels on a separate approximately A4 sheet of black paper.

Total time: 1 hour 21 minutes

Tuesday 25 May 2010




Course work: Today I did the statue drawing, using the Confederate Memorial on the square in our county seat as my model, working with charcoal on paper a bit larger than A3. (To my knowledge, this is the only statue in the county.) Fortunately, the statue is easily visible from the window of the room where my painting group meets, and I took advantage of the opportunity. This was a much more interesting project to me than the building drawings, and it seemed to move along without any real problems.

Reading:



Margaret Livingstone Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing

Abrams, New York, 2002

Pp 68-99



Personal sketchbook work: A copy of a drapery illustration from a book, done with a black Conté pencil. (This was done on a separate sheet approximately A4 in size.)

Townscapes check and log:

I used my limited-color palette to create a sense of depth by using stronger contrasts on closer objects, by use of exaggerated geometric perspective, and by an attempt to use some atmospheric perspective.

My preliminary sketches were helpful in deciding what not to include, as well as in helping to work out methods for drawing details of the structures chosen.

I think that I was able, overall, to use perspective a little more accurately here than in my earlier drawings, despite persistent errors.

The scale of the buildings is generally correct: I should have made additional effort at getting the windows in perspective. I could have done better had I worked this out on larger paper and then transferred it to the approximately A3 sheet that I used for the final drawing.

Within the limits of the palette, the colors are generally accurate except for one grey building that I rendered as brown. All the buildings included are brick, with stone, stucco, or cement trim, and where the owners have chosen to overpaint the structures they fortunately chose colors reasonably similar to my palette. I think the appearance rendered reflects the appearance of these buildings early on a Sunday morning, with no vehicles or pedestrians about.





Total time: 3hours 18 minutes

Monday 24 May 2010




Course work: Have finished (I think) work on the limited-palette drawing of buildings. I did find it necessary to use some blue for the sky, but was otherwise able to use only black, sanguine, and brown Conté.

I decided that a little cropping would produce a better picture:

I then decided to add some perspective lines just for study. Perspective is acceptable in some spots, and pretty bad in others.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 662-673



Personal sketchbook work: A “head and shoulders” graphite sketch of one of the cats, always willing to pose on furniture she’s not allowed upon.

Total time: 1 hour 5 minutes (50h38m)

Sunday 23 May 2010




Course work: Further work on the limited-palette Conté pencil drawing of buildings.



Reading:



Margaret Livingstone Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing

Abrams, NewYork, 2002

Pp 36-67



Personal sketchbook work: A sketch of a T-shirt abandoned on the back of a chair, done with black Conté pencil.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: An extensive review of work done so far in the course, as well as of earlier personal sketchbooks has convinced me that I need to work much harder at reducing the use of linear outlines of a single line weight in my drawing. My tendency to draw in this manner dates back to my days as a zoology student (and perhaps back even further), and I expect to meet great resistance in trying to improve. The continuing work on buildings remains not particularly interesting, but I am making progress, and expect to be able to move on to the next section by the end of the coming week.



Total time: 1 hour 44 minutes (49h33m)

Saturday 22 May 2010




Course work: Further work on the limited-palette drawing of buildings.





Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 650-661



Personal sketchbook work: A partial sketch of a manikin, with sanguine Conté pastel pencil.

Total time: 1 hour 8 minutes

Friday 21 May 2010




(An unanticipated trip to Athens, Georgia cut sharply into my working time, but did provide the opportunity to find a black Conté pencil.)



Course work: Some further work on the drawing of buildings with a limited palette.



Reading:



Margaret Livingstone Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing

Abrams, NewYork, 2002

Pp 8-35



Total time: 55 minutes

Thursday 20 May 2010




Course work: Continued work on the drawing of buildings with limited colors, finishing most of the outline drawing and getting a start on color with sanguine, brown, and black Conté pencils. I found it necessary to use a black Conté crayon for my deepest blacks, as my black Conté pencil seemed more a deep grey.



Reading:

Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 638-649



Personal sketchbook work: A magnified view of a section of a pine cone (think I lost track of things in a few places). A quick lateral portrait sketch, almost recognizable.

Total time: 2 hours 19 minutes

Wednesday 19 May 2010




Course work: Started work on the buildings in color drawing, working on 18 x 12 inch paper. Today’s effort was devoted to getting the major features and the overall perspective approximately correct.



Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 620-637



Personal sketchbook work: A cluster of cumulus clouds with ambitions to become cumulonimbus, done in red chalk. A “found” still-life (a bowl of fruit), done as a ten-minute sketch.

Total time: Two hours two minutes (43h27m)

Monday 17 May 2010




Course work: A quick pencil sketch of my row of buildings from a slightly different viewpoint, with some colored pencil added for experimentation. I can’t say I was happy with the result. Addition of a little cerulean blue marker helped, although it is not included in the list of recommended materials (although the illustration, presumably included as an example of what is desired, includes blue). However, I think this was a useful exercise, as it gives me a somewhat clearer idea of what I am trying to accomplish.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 602-619





Other activity: Watched a VHS tape by Tony Couch entitled Drawing Landscape with Pencil and Ink. This was fairly useful, the pencil portion more so than the ink-and-wash part.



Total time: 2 hours13 min

Sunday 16 May 2010




Course work: A somewhat simplified view of part of the central structure of the now-abandoned Enterprise Cotton Mill in Augusta, Georgia, which I saw from a boat yesterday. The right-hand tower is identical to the left, so I just blocked it in loosely.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 590-601



Personal sketchbook work: A somewhat out-of-proportion sketch of the tower of our local library, another nightmare for the bricklayer. A ten-minute figure sketch in sanguine Conté crayon.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: I have learned during this week, and in some of the earlier work, that I do not find drawing buildings very interesting. This means I have to be particularly careful not to “cut corners” and oversimplify my work.



Total time: 1 hour 8 minutes

Saturday 15 May 2010




Course work: Details of the ornate brick and granite work on a Washington, Georgia storefront typical of the era, in a 10x10 cm square. I would have required a much larger drawing area and a great deal of time to fully depict the complex details of the brick and granite work (it must have driven the masons mad).

Total time: 22 min

Friday 14 May 2010




Course work: Owing to a slight misinterpretation of the instructions, I drew a series of storefronts in a 10x10 cm. square.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 578-589



Personal sketchbook work: A sketch in sanguine Conté crayon of a strongly cross-lit raccoon skull.

Total time: 1 hour 13 minutes

Thursday 13 May 2010




Course work: After a week of struggling and indecision, I did the townscape line drawing today, working from earlier sketch material and from photographs. My subject was a portion of the Wilkes County courthouse. I first did a light pencil sketch (subsequently erased) to work out my major problems. (One of these was the clock: I still don’t think it is quite right.) I then used a set of small, medium and bold Pitt pens for the drawing itself, working over the pencil lines and adding detail and making corrections as I drew. I omitted some elaborate decoration over the central window, as well as two small windows, in the interests of clarity and producing a not-too-busy drawing. This would be a stronger drawing with some shading, but…one must follow the requirements as closely as possible.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 566-577



Personal sketchbook work: A quick charcoal sketch of a corner of the kitchen, with some difficult angles and superimpositions, since it contains 45° corners. My viewfinder helped me a bit.

Total time: 1 hour 36 minutes

Wednesday 12 May 2010




Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 554-565





Personal sketchbook work: As it will soon be time for me to decide which category in Assignment 5 I wish to pursue. I will work intermittently on doing some sketch work in each category. I did this ten-minute sketch from life to begin my investigation.

Total time: 26 minutes

Tuesday 11 May 2010




Course work: Revisited the city square in Washington, Georgia and found a more interesting viewpoint of the courthouse, and did a sketch from this viewpoint, as well as taking a few photographs to help me capture some of the detail when I do the final drawing. I think this viewpoint is more interesting that the one I originally sketched.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 536-553





Personal sketchbook work: A hasty drapery study in red chalk.

Total time: 1 hour 9 minutes (34h27m)

Monday 10 May 2010




Course work: Reviewed my sketches from 6 May and concluded that I need another visit to the site to have enough information to work with. Will take my camera this time.



Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 524-535



Personal sketchbook work: Attempted some sketches of buildings from my photo collection. The first was a downhill street in a small German town: my perspective didn’t come out quite right. The second was the ornate corner tower of our local hotel, built in 1898.

Other activity: Watched a VHS tape by Tony Couch entitled Drawing and Sketching with Markers. This was less useful than I had hoped.



Weekly reflections on learning experience: Further study of perspective early in the week has shown that I may understand the theory, but am having trouble applying it in practice. Later in the week, farm work and resultant fatigue cut severely into my drawing efforts.



Total time: 2 hours 7 minutes (33h18m)

Saturday 8 May 2010




Watched a VHS tape by Tony Couch entitled Drawing: Learning Professional Techniques. This had some useful information about perspective.



Total time: 1 hour

Thursday 6 May 2010




Course work:



Sketched a general view of the Wilkes County Courthouse in Washington, Georgia (our county seat) constructed in 1904. Most rural courthouses in Georgia are of Neoclassical or Federal style: this mad confection astonishes all who see it. The building is constructed primarily of a sand-colored brick: the odd false-front structure on the right is criss-crossed with red brick. The roof is red, as are the wooden slats in the oval openings on the central tower and in the false front on the right. The roofline on the central tower is exceedingly complex, with a central pyramid intersected by crossed gables, with brick false fronts. Of historical interest: the government of the Confederate States was dissolved in the previous courthouse that stood on the same site.

This drawing was done late in the morning on an overcast day: shadows were not strong.



The accompanying sketch of the roof plan of the central tower does not provide as much clarification as I had hoped. One would almost have to build a model in order to really make the complexities clear.



After reviewing these drawings and some photos taken at the same and at other times, I think I have a clearer idea of what I want to include in my final drawing, and will explore this idea a bit more tomorrow.



Reading:



Rudolf Stussi The Fifth Perspective

in The Artist’s Magazine Vol. 27, No 5 (June 2010)

Pp 32-39

(This article discusses a way to produce warped paintings by using warped perspective lines. The most useful feature is a one-page discussion of more conventional methods of perspective.)



Personal sketchbook work: A ball-point pen sketch of a manikin, with some pretty obvious errors.

Total time: 47 minutes

Wednesday 5 May 2010




Course work: Did a highly simplified copy version of the Sir Muirhead Bone drawing on p 14 of the text, and drew in the perspective lines. My vanishing points were multiple.

Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 512-523



Personal sketchbook work: I went out on a short sketching drive today. Spring haying is in full swing, and in a large field with many rolls of hay I saw an area where three freshly-rolled large bales appeared in a line down a hill. A large oak and a small pond made the view even more interesting.

Afternoons in Georgia summers almost invariably bring masses of cumulus clouds, and I sketched some, coloring them with markers (a medium I have neglected in this assignment) after I reached home.

Total time: 1 hour 30 min

Tuesday 4 May 2010




Course work: Although perhaps somewhat outside the intent of the text, I thought it would be interesting to scan the Sir Muirhead Bone drawing and apply perspective lines with the computer. I quickly learned that (despite the problems of working with a small image and the additional complication of atmospheric perspective in the farthest part of the drawing) the perspective lines are not consistent. This suggests that the drawing was done by a skilled eye rather than having been corrected by geometric methods.

Other activity: My painting group met today (time not included).



Total time: 23 minutes

Monday 3 May 2010






Course work: Made another arrangement of books of varying sizes, drew the outlines as best I could, loaded it into the computer, added work space, and drew in my perspective and eye level lines. Because of the confusing number of lines, I placed a dot at the place where each line pair crossed. For some reason, the perspective lines projecting to the right are more nearly accurate than those projecting to the left, with some of my leftward lines being parallel or nearly so. The eye level line as drawn corresponds closely to the observed eye level line. Overall, this is my best effort to date. However, it is clear that a good bit more effort will be needed to become adequate and consistent with my perspective efforts.

Started work on the simplified copy version of the Sir Muirhead Bone drawing on p 14 of the text. After an unsatisfactory start, with some careful observation, I discovered that there are at least three vanishing points, as the structure(s) depicted are sitting upon a gentle hill. Abandoned my initial drawing effort (in which I had failed to recognize the hill) and will restart after further study.





Reading:



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 500-511





Total time: 1 hour 41 min

Sunday 2 May 2010




Course work: Sketched two outbuildings (a run-in shed for the horses, and a tack shed). Photographed them, loaded them into the computer, added some work space on the right side, and applied the projected perspective lines. As expected, some of the lines extended well beyond the page…in fact, some were parallel to the eye-height line, and one rose above it. The tack shed sketch worked out better, perhaps because it was built by professionals instead of being my construction, and thus actually had some right angles.

Dissatisfied with my work here, I decided to try drawing the books, and arranged several of varying sizes. My outline drawing looked superficially satisfactory.

After I loaded the picture into the computer, added some space to work in, and drew my lines, I was more dissatisfied than I was with the buildings. The vanishing points bear little perceptible relationship to the eye-level line. I’ll try this one again tomorrow.

Reading:



Howard Etter & Margit Malmstrom Perspective for Painters

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, Pp 74-95



Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 2)

Taschen, Köln, 2005

Pp 488-499



Personal sketchbook work: A drawing of a battered old brass jug, in graphite.

Weekly reflections on learning experience: It appears that I have less grasp on the principles of perspective than I had thought: my work over the past several days has been disappointing, and it is clear that I need more than just a quick review of the subject.



Total time: 2 hours 19 minutes (25 h 50 m)