9/26/14 Basic Drawing

Today's Class- Today we continued looking at line, this time concentrating on the idea of perspective.  I did introduce the ideas of one and two point perspective systems and talked about the good and bad of each, but we quickly moved on to an idea of natural perspective, looking at the subject and paying attention to relative positions, negative space, planes, angles, etc to try to find the proper location of all the items in the still life compared to the point of view of the artist/viewer.  To keep things simple we did two exercises, one involving nothing but identical boxes, and one that added in cylindrical forms.

How to make this up- For both exercises you will need a large tabletop.  The first one will require several medium size boxes of similar size.  For the second one, you need to add several cylinder forms, such as cans, on and around the boxes.  For each drawing spend about 90 minutes and use a full sheet of your 18" x 24" paper and the pencil of your choice.  Additional student examples and the specific directions can be found here.

These are portfolio exercises that must be made up by the mid semester portfolio grading to receive full credit.

Homework- Find a box with a wide flat surface (like a cereal or cracker box) and lay it down flat on the table.  Find three bottles of similar size and arrange them so that one has its mouth facing toward you, one is facing directly to the right or left, and the other is laying down at an angle relative to you, choosing one of those bottles to be on top of the box, and the others in front of it.  Sketch this set up on a page of your sketchbook using pencil line, paying attention to the specific curves and angles of each items and keeping the planes of the table and box level.  Next, switch the bottle on top of the box for one in a different position, and draw it again.  And finally rearrange again with the last bottle on top of the box and the others in front, so in the end you will have three sketches, each with a differently pointing bottle on the box.

For next class 10/3/14-  We will do our first graded drawing of the semester, a still life with a mix of objects.  You may have the entire class period to work on it if you need it.  Bring your 18" x 24" pad, pencils and erasers.  I will collect the drawings at the end of the day to grade and return the following week.