Part 3 Project 5 Townscapes Exercise 1

This drawing is out of sequence as it has taken me a long time to be able to come up with a place where I could sit comfortably to draw. In Cotonou, it is probably extremely unwise as a White female to sit on the street and sketch. Not only do you stick out like a sore thumb due to the tone of your skin, but people just don't sit around sketching. I know I would draw a crowd of onlookers. It is also swelteringly hot outside with a high humidity level that makes it draining to sit outside. So, instead, I opted to sit in an air-conditioned foyer in one of the buildings at our school. There are only two windows which don't have nasty burglar bars, and this was one of the ones that I sat at.

This foyer is normally a hubbub of activity as classes come and go to the French, Intensive English class and my husband's classroom, but as today is Easter Monday, it is quiet and reposed. Although I love the relative neatness of this particular school campus, I can't say that I have any particular emotional connection to it, other than it is my place of work.

The scene through the window is a contrast between the very stark boring buildings of the office block, and the bright cheerful colors of the flowering shrubs and pot plants, which line the pathways and the edges of the buildings. It is also a contrast between the attempts at neat clean lines and the fact that there are air-conditioners attached at random intervals to the walls. You have this tension between the desire to pull off a neat office block, but the reality that nothing is built particularly straight around here.

During my initial studies, the sky was cloudy, so I had periods of stark sunshine when the walls simply radiated heat and then periods where it was muted in tones. When the sun did break through the clouds it shone directly on the façade, creating a definite patterned shadow of the roof on the white walls.

Detail studies of burglar bars and air-conditioning unit.

As the walls are well plastered and painted in stark white, there is no evidence of the brick work below. The details which are particularly evident are the air-conditioning units and the patterns of the burglar bars over the windows. For this reason I did my 10cm square studies of these two elements.

Preliminary sketch 1: As I was drawing the Director's doorway, I chose to stick down as my underlying layer a page from the QSI newspaper which has all of the names of the various QSI schools and the directors of each. If you look carefully, you can make out some of the names, I then layered a thin wash of yellow, green and cream in the areas where these would be appropriate.

Sketchbook study 1

I commenced working this sketch from the foreground and then worked backwards. I used a mixture of media from differing grades of pencil, markers and watercolor crayons. I don't think that I was able to achieve a sense of depth very successfully as the detail of the foreground gets lost in the greys of the pencil work in the middle ground. Using the newspaper as the base also meant that it was hard to get a clean white wall surface without actually painting white acrylic paint in a fairly concentrated form. I think that the shading around the doorway worked fairly well, it is worked a little less tightly than I normally employ. I do not like the placement of the lamppost directly in front of the hibiscus plant. So, I will try to tweak the positioning of this lamp. I like it, but it just doesn't work here.

Working from the foreground backwards meant that it was difficult to work washes in the background without working over the foreground layer. For this reason, when embarking on the second sketch, I reversed the order and worked the background first.

Preliminary sketch 2: For this sketch, I also did not put down a sketch of the main shapes. Instead, I washed patches of washes in the general position of where I thought the color would be necessary. I then worked from the background first. I worked on the two windows in between the two building blocks. The angle of the windows were slightly slanted downwards, which in the end created a very strange warped perspective. I then worked on the left-hand side building with the air-conditioning unit. I particularly liked the way the charcoal and watercolor washes worked in delineating the roof area and its shadow. I then worked on the Director's office area. I think the door area worked well in that it is not incredibly detailed and helps to create a slight sense of space. I also like the way the plants turned out. I used watercolor markers and charcoal for this area.

It was at this stage that I realized that the building block was horribly out of proportion and I could not fit in the three windows that the façade has. So, I resorted to including only two. As I had to add to the building, the wash of this section was not the same tonality. So lacks the warm radiance of the rest of the building.

I worked the pathway with a mixture of watercolor markers and watercolor crayons. I think the path on the right worked out well, mimicking the surface of the pathway. However, my perspective is really off, as this section of the path should meet up with the path on the left-hand side of the row of bushes on the left. If you know this area, you would feel that I had done an Escher on my perspective. This is an area that I will need to work on for my final sketch. 

The lamppost in this sketch does have a sense of being in the foreground, but I still think that somehow I need to move its position so that it is not central to the picture. The "Director" signage is also more dominant than I think it needs to be. I also eliminated some of the pot plants that I thought were not necessarily adding to the picture.

Sketchbook study 2

Final Sketch: For this final sketch I drew on A3 size paper. I tweaked the composition slightly to have the lantern a bit further over to the right, allowing the director's door to be a little more obvious. I also reintroduced some of the pot plants in the foreground. 

This time around I did a more careful study of the linear perspective to try to counteract the optical distortions of my previous picture. What I found so interesting was that despite my attention to angles and linear perspective, the building still appears warped. On discussing this with my husband, he pointed out that the building really does look warped. The lines of the windows between the two building blocks do slant downwards at a disproportionate angle.

For this drawing, I started with the sky, and decided to include the ugly power pole with its scrappy wiring, in order to give a better sense of place to the building. I noticed that the sunlight on the building was giving the shadows a slight warm yellowy glow, so included this in my initial washes of diluted acrylic paint.

I keep endeavoring to work in a looser more dynamic manner, but as I am so interested in detail, my pictures tend to become controlled by detail. To counteract that I tried to loosen up my interpretation of the foliage. After applying a wash of color, I would work in a fairly loose fashion with black watercolor pencil and watercolor fine markers. I would then wash over portions of the drawing to blend the colors in a more organic fashion. I think this approach helps to counteract the tight lines of the building and its air-conditioners.

Final study for this exercise.

It is interesting to me that you can create three different drawings, with slightly different emphases and different feelings, from exactly the same spot. My first drawing was more claustrophobic due to the fact that I zoomed in to the area between the two buildings and cluttered the space with details of the pot plants and air-conditioners. Whereas, my last drawing has a greater sense of space, but the space is constricted due to the placement of the pot plants in almost a line, breaking up ones imagined travel down the path. So, they form a barrier to the approach of the Director's door. The composition seems to teeter on the axis created by the lamppost. The main features form an inverted triangle, tottering around the point of the base of the lamppost.  

Part 3 Project 5 Townscapes Research for Exercise 1

Fig. 1. Twombly, Cy.

Coronation of Sesostris, panel 10, 2000.

[acrylic, crayon and pencil]

My research leading up to this next section of my course lead me to artists who delight in working in layers, which enigmatically provide an intricate surface woven with intriguing shape, forms and motifs.

Cy Twombly seems to specialize in using a monochromatic color scheme with numerous layers. His favored medium in the works I studied was crayon and pencil details on wall paint. As someone who loves playing with writing in combination with ink work, I particularly enjoy his work Coronation of Sesostris, panel 10, 2000. The medium he chose for this work was acrylic, crayon, and pencil on canvas. (See Fig. 1) (Cy Twombly, 2016) I love the somber palette of Untitled 1951. The subtle nuances of tonal changes in some areas contrast with the rugged, abrasive strokes of creamy white on dense black in the vertical strokes of his mark-making. These marks in turn allude to letter formations.

I continued to research contemporary artists and OCA tutors, Clare Wilson and Doris Rohr. What I found appealing in both of their works is the way that they work with layers. They lay down a layer and then rework or work over it.

In the case of Doris Rohr’s, her promotional drawing for her exhibition Jetsam, comprises of an initial layer, which seems to be the lightest suggestion of a waterfall worked in a pale layering of inks, followed by detailed pencil work of the foreground tree branches and twigs. (Rohr, 2016) It was interesting to see how she combined successfully combined the achromatic graphic pencil sketching with ink washes.

Clare Wilson’s work has an ethereal magnificence to it, like a shrouded misty dawn or sunset. The shapes and forms of previous layers lie intangibly buried beneath the misty layers of subsequent images. The soft warmth of her limited palette provides a soothing absorption to the shapes and forms which suggest vegetation or landscape. It is hard for me to pinpoint a particular image that inspires me as her work in general is truly absorbing. (Wilson, 2016)



List of Illustrations

Twombly, Cy (2000) Coronation of Sesostris, panel 10 [acrylic, crayon and pencil] 207 X 156 cm. Cy Twombly Gallery 1. [online] Available at: http://www.cytwombly.info/

Works Cited

Cy Twombly, 2016. Cy Twombly Gallery 1. [Online]
Available at: http://www.cytwombly.info/ [Accessed 11 March 2016].

Rohr, D., 2016. Exhibition - Jetsam - Doris Rohr. [Online]
Available at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1565658170428032
[Accessed 12 March 2016].

Wilson, C., 2016. Clare Wilson. [Online]
Available at: http://www.clare-wilson.com/gallery_552243.html
[Accessed 12 March 2016].

Part 3 Project 5 Townscapes Exercise 2 Study of a townscape using line

Johnston, Craig. Ganvie Outskirts, 2015.

For this drawing, I looked around the area where we live and found that I was totally uninspired by the haptic, concrete jumble of buildings surrounding our apartment. So, I decided to once again return to my husband's photographs of Ganvie, the Venice of Africa. The photo I chose was of a settlement of stilt houses on the outskirts of the main stilt city. What I particularly liked about this photograph was the rhythmic pattern set up by the uprights of the wooden "scaffolding". Throughout the village these structures could be seen. They weren't piers that one could walk along, so I am not sure what the structure was for, unless purely for tying up their hollowed out log boats.

On the day of our trip to Ganvie, the sky was overcast with a slight drizzle. The day seemed so dismal, that we even wondered whether our trip would end up being cancelled. We set out in the drizzle, but, fortunately, the clouds soon parted highlighting the landscape with a fresh glow. It truly was a lovely day. After months with the harmatan dust cloaking the sky, causing it to lose all definition of clouds, this clear, sunlight was welcome.

Benin is a land of contrasts, which is evidenced in the landscape of Ganvie. As a result, when considering drawing this study, I wanted to emphasize contrast and linear rhythm. I wanted the roofs of the buildings to stand out against the backdrop of the sky.

After doing the preliminary pencil sketch, I realized that I wanted to increase the contrast of the buildings on the right even further so that the dark areas created more of a rhythm across the page, connecting this area with the deep shadow of the doorway on the left.

Double spread sketch.

Photoshop enhanced photo.

I also thought that the composition would benefit from being a bit tighter and I liked the elongated format dictated by the double spread of my sketchbook. For this reason I drew this as an elongated format, 15 X 46 cm. I took the original photograph and adjusted the hue levels of some of the hues until I had created a photo with more contrast and emphasis on linear elements upon which to base my sketch.

I did a mock-up of the left-hand side house in inks to see how it would turn out. I decided to use Bombay black India ink for the majority of the picture as it has a warm brown tinge to the greys and blacks.

When embarking on the final drawing, I did an extremely light preliminary sketch, before I washed a light layer of ink into the background using a broad chisel brush. I wanted the whites of the picture to stand out against this light grey sky. What I didn't realize was that the ink would absorb much quicker on this Canton paper than it did in my sketchbook, so I did not get the even application I was seeking. However, in retrospect, this was to my benefit as it helped to add interest into the sky, suggesting variations in the tones of the light cloud formation.

I then worked the house on the left-hand side. I discovered that my slightly damaged medium sized chisel-headed paintbrush creates parallel streaks when moistened with a slight dip of diluted ink. I used these marks in the roof and where ever I had corrugated iron walls. I added definition to details with a 0.7mm uni-ball ink pen. I tried to emphasize the person hunkered down in the doorway, to create a sense of intrigue. I tried to do this by emphasizing the horizontal dark strip of the shadow of the roof and the rectangular form of the doorway. This person is also emphasized by the sweep of the boat tied up under the doorway, as well as the pattern created by the black plastic hanging from the side of the house. The pattern of the slits creates a vertical rhythm under the house that visually links to the vertical struts of the houses across the water gap.

Next, I tried to establish my furthest background layer. I left two sides of the roofs of the houses white, as well as some of the grassy patch of the embankment. A soft wash of ink sets this area off from the middle ground, with a few tufts of the fish traps sticking out of the water for visual interest.

My next task was to draw in the houses on the right. Once again I used my damaged brush to draw in the parallel marks of the roofs and corrugated walls. I tried to emphasize the variations in the wall textures and tones, ensuring that I had a full range from the dark house in the middle to the lightest house in middle ground, which is towards the centre of the picture.

What I enjoyed painting the most was the vertical struts of the stilts and the scaffolding. I tried to allow the organic nature of brushed ink strokes to add to the interest of this drawing. Trying to create different strokes to represent each post, was quite challenging and diverting. A challenge I faced was to create shorter strokes to convey the posts in the distance which support to houses, in such a way that you knew the house were set off at an angle to the posts of the scaffold structure. I left a smidgen of white under the posts before indicating the water level to hint at the idea that there is a bit of turf under these posts.

At this stage, my weekend had run out and I was once again faced with a busy week of teaching. So, it was with a bit of trepidation that I once again tried to work on this drawing, almost a week later.

I decided to make a bold move and to change the ink I was using to a slightly darker bluer tone for the foreground. For this purpose, I used Pelikan 4001 Black ink. When I tested it, it was quite a bit bluer, and I was nervous that it would not suite the drawing. However, I did want to provide a visual contrast between this layer and the rest of the picture, as I feared it would be easy for this layer to appear on the same level as the others.

I started by working on the figures in the main boat. As this is a line drawing, I tried to emphasize the contours of the figures and only suggest the tones of the faces. I left the net purposely white to increase the contrast between it and the posts behind it.

For the boat, I applied a number of sweeping strokes to describe its hull. As the area became wet, these eventually blurred into each other helping to suggest its form. The smaller boat on the right was also created with a few overlapping strokes, which eventually blended.

Mark-making practice.

Creating the ripples in the water was nerve-racking as I wanted them to be calligraphic and yet it is easy for marks of this nature to spoil the flow of the white space. I think I was able to maintain enough white in the majority of the water. After looking at how different the underlying blue tone of the black was to the middle ground tones I decided to add some strokes to the reflections of the left-hand house in the brown-toned black. For these reflection ripples, I once again used the damaged brush to create parallel strokes. I don't know if I completely like these strokes. They do convey the idea of water lapping in a patterned configuration, but as they are some of the only horizontal strokes, they might draw too much attention.

On discussing this drawing with my husband, we agreed that the focal point of the picture is the dark house with the patterned window shutter. This is caused by the fact that all of the figures are looking in that direction and the reflections of the water tend to point in that direction too. It is also the only house which is dark. There is, however, a tension between the detail of the boats and the figure with the white net in the foreground, and this dark house with it corrugated outhouse.

Ink drawing.

I think that I have been able to add to the subtle intrigue of this stilted village scene, through my play between light and dark, and the rhythmic quality of the verticals of the posts.

Did your preliminary sketches give you enough information for your final piece of work?
No, however, it did serve to highlight what my main focus would be in this piece: the contrast between dark and light, and the rhythmic pattern set up by the horizontal posts. My sketch did also help me to explore the forms of the scene and to figure out how to simplify them. In many ways, I think my final piece has maintained some of the essence of my first preliminary sketch. What would be interesting is to take this scene I have drawn in ink, along with my pencil sketch, and to create a new drawing purely based on these. Not allowing myself the luxury of the photograph as reference. I suspect that this might lead to a more expressive, but less technical drawing. However, as time is pressing, I feel I need to move on to what should have been the first project in this sequence of lessons, exercise 1.

Part 3 Project 5 Townscapes Exercise 4 Statues

In preparation for this drawing I studied the description of how to get Gestural Tone as explained in Drawing Projects. (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014) I took particular note of these sentences:

“Remember that when you make drawings, you must not only depict these ‘measure’ tones, but you are also drawing quantities of light. Light is invisible energy. And the marks you make should express this energy and make it visible.” (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014)

Johnston, Craig [photograph]  Jambul, 2004.

As it is difficult for me to get to study statues within Cotonou, due to our not having a car, and my not being willing to risk my life on one of the readily available motorcycle taxis, I decided to base my study on a statue of Jambul, a Kazakh hero. My husband took this photo when we visited one of the squares in Almaty, whilst living there.

Due to my fascination with layering and the fact that I find statues in general dark and oppressive, I decided to start my drawing off by laying down a layer of Cadium Yellow Pale Hue mixed with Black acrylic. What I hoped to do by laying down a slightly textural layer of acrylic, I would create a sense of the rough surface of a bronze statue which has been corroded by the extreme weather conditions it faces. I then experimented with various media on top of this dark background layer. I found that graphic pencils of a complete range from HB to 8B worked well, but left a silvery sheen. Charcoals, oil pastels, chalk pastels and watercolor crayons all worked well on top of this layer. Metallic Rub-Ons worked really well, but would need to be applied sparingly as they tend to float above the other layers, claiming dominance. Construction paper crayons created a finer, smoother texture than oil pastels. Chalk pastels worked well, but had to be applied as a final layer. They do not allow other media to be worked on top when they are applied to acrylic paint. What did not work were watercolor pencils.

Sketchbook experimentation

The angle of this statue is extremely difficult to get right as the foreshortening and wide-angle lens created a very warped perspective. So I completed three studies in order to get the perspective and Jambul’s expression right.

Layering experiments

Sketchbook practice

Refining features

I chose to crop the image to a square format to provide a slightly different format from my usual A3 and A4 drawings. I covered the majority of the 42 x 42 cm drawing paper with a Cadium Yellow and Black acrylic mix. I experimented and applied this paint with a palette knife. The effect was quite pleasing as it spread the paint more evenly than I could have done with a paintbrush. I let the black thin out towards the top of the paper to try to ensure that this area would be lighter when worked.

I then sketched in the proportions of Jambul using pencil and started working the background with blue crayon and white construction paper crayon, and watercolor crayons. Once I had covered the entire background, I applied a thin layer of white acrylic. I ensured that the white was a bit thicker towards the top of the paper.

What was interesting was that as I worked the figure I had to keep adjusting the silhouette of Jambul, resulting in my needing to alter the painted background. This had the effect of adding a slightly different tonal quality to these areas of the background. I know that I could have worked the background enough to minimize this difference, but I actually found that this variance in the statues outline seemed to enhance the drawing, so I left the evidence of my reworking of the boundaries as a feature.

I started with the Kazakh hat and Jambul’s face as I wanted this to be detailed enough to feature as the focus. What I enjoyed about my choice of media was that I could rework the surface repeatedly, until I was satisfied with Jambul’s expression, without it becoming muddy and spoilt. I then sought to treat the rest of the body a little looser with less detail. I used a peach colored construction paper crayon for most of the shading, with occasional touches of grey and yellow. I discovered that by dipping my finger in white acrylic, I could smear the white highlights onto the paper in such a way that they lost definition and petered out. I think that these highlights help to provide contrast to the otherwise tonally dark sculpture. As I quoted previously, I was trying to find a way to "express this energy (light) and make it visible." (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014)

Once I had completed the foreground, I decided to add touches of Rub-On Metallic. The picture was looking rather dead and needed something to give it a bit more energy. I think the touches of sheeny metallic help to give it a bit more vibrancy.

Final drawing.

On completion, my husband - after looking long and hard at my drawing - decided that it has a dreamy quality to it. He said that it appears to be swirling slightly. I think that this might be because of the reworked background areas to the right of the statue and the smears of white highlights which tend to emphasize a slight clock-wise circular spiral. I know that I have far to go, but I think that this piece was influenced by the dark forms and layers of John Virtue's cityscapes. The surface of the painting is fairly layered and has a rough texture to it, which was the effect that I desired.

What I noticed when posting this blog was the my head of Jambul is actually a little too large for the steep foreshortened angle of the photograph. I was not aware of this until now.

Works Cited

Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014. In: Drawing Projects - an exploration of the language of drawing. London: Black Dog Publishing, pp. 166 - 169.

Part 3 Project 5 Exercise 3 Limited Palette Study

Due to the fact that my husband had left his camera at school, and I do not feel safe or comfortable drawing on the street, I decided to work with what was available to me, the view from my lounge window. I am particularly fond of this view from my lounge window. I decided to use the sketch I did during my aerial perspective study to develop a limited palette interpretation of it. This scene is very typical of this region of Cotonou, with its haphazard mix of buildings and vibrant palm trees of all sorts and shades.

Initial sketchbook study.

I started with a watercolor study in my sketchbook, which I think caught the essence of the scene using only greys and greens.  I enjoyed practicing using layers in my foliage sections.

Due to the fact that the scene from my lounge window is a predominantly grey scene, on my second attempt at capturing this scene, I decided to use a warm-grey toned paper as my base color, instead of pristine white. I tried to use this tone as one of my lighter mid-range tones, instead of the white as highlights.

For this study I used a mixture of watercolor pencils, water color crayons, inks, and acrylic white. I often found myself sitting with a fist full of varying crayons and pencils in my hand which I used intermittently.

This study did gradually evolve. I started with a light sketch of the various buildings drawing in the main verticals and horizontals, as well as all of the diagonals. The buildings in the background were the hardest as their angles were so subtle due to the distance between them and my viewpoint. I started working with this background zone first, trying to be as light in my touch as possible. It tried to only imply detail where ever possible, without totally losing all definition. As this is a hot climate, things in the distance do still have quite a bit of definition.

I developed an approach of laying down broad strokes of watercolor washes and then working details in on top using watercolor pencils and crayons. For the sky, I created grey washes to imply the hazy bleak sky that greets us daily.

My next area of focus was the middle ground, with its buildings, and their surrounding vegetation. I found a satisfying technique of laying down the darker tones within the vegetation, and then working in a textural manner on top, with water color pencils and crayons. I debated whether to have the roof in the middle ground red, or not. In my preliminary sketch, I stuck completely to green tones, but I felt that the warmth of the drawing was lacking. So, in this sketch, I decided to include the warm rusty, red tones of the middle ground roof to add some vibrancy and warmth to the otherwise fairly muted green tones.

My extreme foreground area includes the top slice of the roof directly infront of our apartment, and the side of the nextdoor office block. Together they form a partial frame to the right hand side and bottom of the picture plane. I think this works as it tends to focus your eye towards the busier left handside of the picture, where the two taller palm trees form the left-hand portion of the picture.

The last area I worked on was these two palm trees. As they are my focal point, I tried to give them more detail and lots of textural and tonal variance. I do enjoy the chalkboard effect of drawing a lighter color on top of a darker ground color. It provides quite a contrast between the shadows and the highlights.

I do feel that I was able to create a sense of depth, although not quite as convincingly as my achromatic ink study of the Spanish village. I find using just black and whites to portray aerial perspective far easier to control. However, color is more descriptive of the actual scene from my window and lends a tropical warmth which can only be implied in an achromatic color scheme.

In this second study, I used a splash of muted red in the roof in the middles ground to add some interest.

On completion of this drawing I decided to see what it would have looked like with the far right-hand side building reduced somewhat. In Photoshop, I cropped the side a bit and I think it helps to tighten the image, focusing your attention on the middle ground and less on the boring building to the right - which is a very boring building. I also noticed that I had inadvertently left out some windows in the grey building just behind the foreground right building.

Photoshop cropped version

Although I prefer the rich colors of my second painting and the intricacy of the details in the foliage, I think I enjoy the spontaneity of the sketchbook approach more. They are very different studies. I am undecided as to whether my building which is missing some windows needs them or not. I think it would draw more focus with the windows, whereas at the moment the palm trees are getting the attention.

Part 3 Project 5 Townscapes Research Point

Van Ruisdael, Jacob (mid. 1660s)

Village in Winter by Moonlight.

In studying works of John Virtue, I decided to look at one of the artists Tate Museum cites as being his inspiration, namely: Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9?-82). (Taylor, 2003) Although I have never actually studied the works of Jacob van Ruisdael, I immediately recognized a number of his paintings as being famous Dutch works.

A sombre, expressive painting of Ruisdael’s is Village in Winter by Moonlight (fig. 1). As described by The National Gallery, he “… was able to create a poetic and sometimes brooding or tragic mood in his landscapes.” (Gallery, 2016) In Village in Winter By Moonlight, he created the foreboding mood through his use of stark contrast. Within the approaching thunderstorm, he has extreme dark hooded areas, contrasted with the moonlight reflecting off the crest of the clouds. The diagonal of the dark underside of the cloud directs your eye dramatically to the ramshackled cottage, which is receiving a fleeting illumination from the moonlight breaking through the looming, thunderous clouds. The dappled areas of light and shade add drama to the scene as two relatively insignificant figures hustle along the road, heading diagonally away from the viewer.

What I think contributes to the brooding nature of this artwork is that it is monochromatic, with strong contrast in the immediate foreground on the right-hand side, and then gradually reducing contrast as your eye follows the line of the road towards the left, into the far distance. His use of aerial perspective adds to the foreboding as you can envision that the man and boy have a long way to travel before they reach the safety of their home - and the storm is about to break.

Fig. 2. Virtue, John (2003) Landscape No. 664.

[oil, acrylic and shellac on canvas].

In a similar manner, John Virtue uses an achromatic color scheme with strong contrasts in his painting Landscape No. 664 (Fig. 2). In this painting he has alluded to a city scape with a cathedral dome and spire in the near distance. (I presume that it is Saint Paul’s cathedral, but as I could not find a discussion on this painting, this is merely my guess.) He has used slight aerial perspective in that the dome, plinth and drum is slightly lighter and less defined than the darker buildings in the foreground. His paint application appears fresh - the paint is caught dripping down the canvas - and yet masterfully belabored in that it has numerous layers that allude to man-made structures and buildings.

Illustrations

Figure 1

Van Ruisdael, Jacob (mid 1660s) Village in Winter by Moonlight. [oil on  canvas] 36 x 32 cm. At: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jacob-van-ruisdael

Figure 2
Virtue, John (2003) Landscape No. 664. [oil, acrylic and shellac on canvas] height: 183.30 cm, width: 183.50 cm At: UK, London, Government Art Collection.

Works Cited

Gallery, T. N., 2016. Jacob van Ruisdael. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jacob-van-ruisdael
[Accessed 10 3 2016].

Taylor, R., 2003. Landscape No 624 1999–2000. [Online]
Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/virtue-landscape-no-624-t07915/text-summary
[Accessed 10 March 2016].

Part 3 Project 4 Perspective Exercise 3 Aerial or Atmospheric Perspective

I started out this exercise by doing a liquid watercolor and watercolor pencil sketch of the scene from our lounge window across the roofs of the surrounding buildings. On completing this sketch, I realized that the building in the background were still not light enough to get a full feeling of infinite space. I did feel, however, that the detail of the foliage did manage to draw ones attention to the foreground. Your eye tends to travel around the quadrilateral formed by the coconuts the palm in the foreground, the palm in the middle ground and the darker building in the background.

I have always marveled at the tonal variations that the Chinese literati managed to achieve in their intricate landscape paintings. Although they did not follow the Western conventions of perspective, they achieve infinitesimal landscapes using aerial perspective. “The painting combines in a wonderful way grandeur of conception, serenity of mood, sensitivity in the handling of distance through subtle grades of ink tone, and a human dimension in the delicate details of village life…” (China Online Museum, n.d.) Their use of washes of ink, using handmade, natural hair brushes to maximize the textural quality of the ink application, is truly inspirational.

Fig 1. Guo Xi. Old Trees, Level Distance ca.1080

Referring back to works of Guo Xi, such as Old Trees, Level Distance ca.1080, I spent some time experimenting with brushstrokes, particularly trying to get brushstrokes that would suggest vegetation layers and clouds (fig.1). (Xi, 1080) The Chinese literati painters tended to just suggest clouds and mist by the omission of any ink. What I found difficult that to get a soft line which was cloudlike; it seemed to help to paint with my brush on its side. However, the paintbrush absorbed more ink where it joins the staff, meaning that this area left a slightly darker ridge. I eventually tried to applying the tops of clouds with my brush upside. By doing so, the darker ridge was better placed. The funny thing was that whilst working on my final study, my paintbrush dropped onto my artwork, rolling across the page causing marks which were more wispy and cloudlike than I had managed to achieve. I then played around with this idea and eventually was able to add some faint touches into the clouds giving them a bit of form.

Photograph I took of the outer lying areas of Madrid.

In Old Trees, Level Distance ca. 1080, I saw that Guo Xi had created a general tonal description of his trees and rocks, but then he worked on top of this with a more detailed darker layer. I experimented with this in my sketchbook studies. I also tried to use my brush with only a limited amount ink on it in order to get the implied lines that literati painters often used in their interpretation of hillsides and rocky outcrops.

My final sketch in my sketchbook is of a Spanish village with its cathedral breaking the skyline (see Fig.1). Ironically, as far as I remember, I took this photograph from the Madrid Palace in the glory days of the building bubble, when Spain had a thriving building industry. The buildings under construction line the middle ground. I feel that this sketch has started to have a better sense of depth with my use of interspersing darker and lighter bands of hillside. I was able to get my cathedral to stand apart by its position in the lower left-hand corner of the composition, set apart by being the lightest building in the scene.

Sketchbook study 1

Sketchbook study of ink application

Sketchbook study of clouds

Sketchbook study of aerial perspective

To further this study, I went on to draw an A3 ink study of this same scene. I had previously discovered that my three different bottles of black ink each create a different intensity of black. So I used the more brownie-black ink in the far distant space, sky, and base color for my foreground bushes. I used the Pelican black ink for my middle ground and the darkest detail as it is a more intense, pure black.

Sketchbook study of scene

It always amazes me how different papers react to ink. So when I started working with my 180 g/m² thicker grade, I had to adjust my handling of the ink. This paper was far more absorbent than my sketchbook paper, resulting in it being harder to create the subtle transitions of one strip of hillside on top of the next. I also discovered that once I place the ink, there is no going back and blotting it to make it lighter. The ink gets absorbed and is there regardless of how you try to tweak it. This was different from my previous experience with working with wet-on-wet application techniques previously.

Once I had applied all of my layers, I had to go back and rework the cathedral in a number of different ways. I had to try to draw more attention to it by darkening the surrounding area and lightening the dome. The dome itself needed correcting, as it was too squat for a traditional orthodox cathedral dome. I did these corrections using liquid white and black watercolor on top of the original roof shape and surrounding buildings. I also lightened the balconies in the building to the left of the cathedral to prevent them from drawing your eye away from the focal point, the cathedral.

Unlike my previous landscapes studies which have at times taken a long time, this ink painting was more spontaneous and I completed it within a few hours. Previous to doing this art course, I was not in the habit of doing sketchbook studies before embarking on a work. I now see the benefit of practicing beforehand. It means that you iron out the technical issues, such as perspective, composition, the media you will use, and method of application, meaning that once you start your final study, you are freer to be expressive and enjoy responding to what the artwork actually requires to pull it together.

Final Aerial Perspective study

Works Cited

China Online Museum, n.d. Chinese Painting. [Online]
Available at: http://www.comuseum.com/painting/landscape-painting/
[Accessed 5 March 2016].

Xi, G., 1080. Old Trees, Level Distance, ca. 1080. [Art] (Metropolitan Museum of Art NY). Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guo_Xi._Old_Trees,_Level_Distance,_ca._1080._Handscroll,_34,9x104,8._Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_N-Y.jpg [Accessed 5 March 2016].