Perspective Strategy Drawing

Purpose:
To review the perspective strategies that you learned;

To make connections between what you learned and demonstrating your understanding by creating a drawing using one of the perspective strategies.

In this piece I used several of the strategies studied. In entially sketching out the lines I had all aspects of the landscape vanishing into one point on the horizon, making it one point perspective. I also used size, distance, and aerial perspective to give the piece depth. The fence posts, trees, and parts of the tracks get proportionally smaller as the vanish back into the piece, and the greenery gets bluer as it goes back. These three strategies really helped me to see the depth and improve how I draw. It was interesting to me to experiment with what direction things go in according to the transversal lines, because I hadn't been drawing it like that before. I also learned just how important use of color is to the perspective of a piece.

Linear Perspective

Linear perspective is a mathematical technique applied to works of art that create the illusion of distance and space by applying rules of geometry and placement of objects in space.

• Horizon line: A point of perspective/eye level that the drawing/painting’s depth is focused around.
• Vanishing point: The point in a piece where all parallel lines drawing the viewer’s eye meet at the horizon.
• Orthogonal lines: Lines that connect objects in a piece to the vanishing point, creating the depth.
• Transversal lines: Lines that establish distances and lengths of objects connected by orthogonal lines.
• One-point perspective: Perspective using only one single vanishing point to create depth.
• Two-point perspective: Perspective using two vanishing points to create depth, often with one point positioned off the page.

Depth perspective can be shown by multiple factors. You can observe and create the change in color objects experience as the get further away from you. Objects in different depths within a piece will also be different shapes and sizes. Changing size and placement along the horizon can affect the depth of a piece as well.

Aerial perspective is the principle of how distance and atmosphere change an object’s appearance. The further away something such as mountain gets, the bluer it gets. Da Vinci observed this in how the mountains seemed to blend with their surroundings the further from him they were. He noted that each object back got proportionally “bluer” as it blended with its background.

Circular perspective is called an ellipse. This form of perspective is controlled by rectangular perspective, and the laws that it follows. A rectangle can be drawn to the laws of its perspective and a circle would then be drawn in proportionally, creating the correct depth.

Printmaking History, Processes, and Artists

Printmaking is a very old art form that has existed for centuries. It was originally used to make important religious prints, before moveable type made it much quicker and easier to create prints. After that printmaking became a regular art from artists used to portray all kinds of subjects. Printmaking was often used to create images and text in newspapers, put graphics on t-shirts and other mass produced design products, posters, and eventually fine arts. Printmaking was used in Europe as early as the 14th century, and became quite popular in Asian cultures as well. There are also many ways of doing printmaking varying in materials techniques.

Four types of printmaking:

1. Linoleum Block Printing or Linotype

Linotype printing is a type of printmaking in which a block of linoleum is cut away from, usually with one or several sharp tools made to dig the linoleum out. First the artist would lightly draw their image onto the block and then cut the negative space out of the block, leaving the actual work raised. The raised area would then be coated in ink with a brayer and pressed onto the surface receiving the print such as paper.

2. Screen Printing or Silk-Screening

Screen printing is a form of printing that uses a mesh stencil to print on fabric. The mesh allows the in to be easily transferred to another surface. This method soaks the stencil in ink and presses it against the fabric surface receiving the print. A form of squeegee would then add pressure to the stencil, forcing the ink to absorb into the fabric.

3. Woodblock

Woodblock printing is most popular in Asian cultures. It is a method of printing that is most commonly used on fabric or to create seals and stamps. This technique is similar to the one used in linoleum block printing in that negative space would be carefully cut out of the woodblock using a chisel tool or sandpaper. This type of carving is what's called a relief. The act of actually creating the print can be done in three ways, by simply pressing the block on the surface, by placing the fabric on the block and rubbing it, or by running it through a printing press. If these prints are done in color each color is on a separate block, though certain areas can be printed over to create more complex color patterns.

4. Etching

Etching is a type of printmaking used with metal. A type of waxy material known as a ground is placed over the surface of the metal for the artist to carve lines and designs out of. The ground is resistant to acid, allowing the areas it covers not to be eaten away by acid. This allows the artist to then dip the piece into acid that eats away the carved areas, forming deep lines in the metal where the artist carved them. The block of metal would then be put through a printing press with paper to print the design.

Katsushika Hokusai

Andy Warhol

Orla Kiely

Art Movement: Expressionism

The German expressionist movement began at the turn of the century and into the early decades of the 20th century. It happened largely to portray the emotions, tragedies, and ideals circulating the world in a time of war. These works were often were often very dramatic, using sharp lines and loud uses of color and form. Common themes in expressionist works had to do with fear and anxiety, the horrors of war, and the shifting views on politics, spirituality, and sexuality of humans. It got its inspiration from other similarly inspired movements such as post-impressionism, cubism, and symbolism.

Käthe Kollwitz, one of the most famous and influential artists to emerge from the German expressionist movement, used her works to display her feelings on the horrendousness of war and the human experience. She never used any color in her work, letting the carvings and printings speak for themselves. Holly Berry is a contemporary artist and book illustrator from Maine. Much like Käthe, she uses her art to tell stories and evoke emotions within them. She uses similar techniques in carving and printing her works, but many of hers are in color and tend to be a bit softer than Käthe's.

Island Scene 3 by Holly Berry

Die Mütter by Käthe Kollwitz

These two works are similar in that they are both black and white pieces created with striking use of lines. Both of them are fairly simple in shading, and use thickness, direction, and amount of lines to create depth and design. They also both use a large amount of contrast. Island Scene 3 uses more straight lines than Die Mütter, and the lines are thicker and farther apart. The subjects are also very different, Island Scene 3 being a calmer picture of a small cottage and garden contrasts greatly with the emotional scene of Die Mütter that features a large group of people huddling together.

Post-Impressionism

Purpose: To gain a basic understanding about the Post-Impressionism Art Movement and to identify Artists who work(ed) in this style.

The Post-Impressionist movement began in the late 1800s as a way to capture emotions expressively and with unique style. It was a semi-abstracted form of art that used a lot of symbolism. The goal of the movement was to move away from realism in order to capture the emotion of a scene or object. There were several artists that were especially prevalent in this movement including Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne. Van Gogh is most famous for his painting Starry Night. Van Gogh was determined to put personal expression into his works using very rugged brushstrokes. Cezanne’s basis was a new way of studying nature, using his form of art to capture something that was not true to life but rather true to the structure of always changing colors. Gauguin was also interested in not capturing true photographic realism but rather the feelings invoked by certain color schemes.

Voorhies, James. "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Post-Impressionism. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2014.

In doing this assignment I learned that post-impressionism was not at all what I thought it was. The thoughts and ideas behind more expressive art and why the movement became what it was really fascinated me. The specific idea of pointillism and how using small bits of color next to each other could fool the eye into mixing the colors together. Seeing all these different techniques made me think about my own style of painting and how I wanted to approach my still life painting. I really like the looser styles used in the post-impressionist works and I'm eager to try some more expressive style of painting soon!

Half Portrait Drawing, Sketchbook

Purpose:

To look closely at half of a portrait and complete the portrait by drawing similar features;
To practice drawing facial features: eyes, nose, and mouth

This assignment was a lot of fun for me because I had to really look at and imagine the other half of the face. In drawing this I learned a lot about the symmetries of the face, both what is symmetrical and what is not. I struggled with determining the light source from just half the picture, but eventually I figured it out pretty well. Because hairlines can also be asymmetrical I tried to imagine the other half as best as I could, which was a challenge for me because I am not at all a visual/spacial person. Overall this assignment gave me a chance to strengthen my visualization skills.

Realism, inspired drawing, Sketchbook

Purpose: To gain a basic understanding about the Realism Art Movement and to identify Artists who work(ed) in this style.

I think I learned a lot about different techniques and styles in doing this assignment. I learned how to blend colored pencils well and use them to make opaque values and richer colors. This particular painting helped me to focus a lot on blending and motion in the picture. The bun in the hair as well as the folds in the shirt give the portrait a motion that I had to work to capture. I had to focus on larger areas without getting hung up on details as well, which is a skill I think i really benefitted in learning. All in all I was exteremly pleased with the things I learned doing this project.

Realism was a movement that took place, primarily, in the late 19th century. Artists in this movement would draw or paint scenes exactly as they were. This included scenes that were ugly or shocking. Most of them were made to prove some sort of point or show a picture of the world as it was. It moved away from romanticism and making everything pretty. It was making art that was “real” in a sense, and showed everything as it was.

Horse Ploughing at the Nivernais

Marie-Rosa Bonheur

Ballerine

Marina Dieul

This painting is similar to Marie-Rosa Bonheur’s in that it has a general softness and motion to it. The girl’s hair and clothes have very smooth folds and a soft lighting to them. In Horse Ploughing at Nivernais the cows movement is very smooth, and the light on their fur is very softened. Both poses are very realistic and have a regular motion to them. Ballerine is different, however, in that it has no complex or hyper-realistic background. In Ballerine the girl is against a mostly solid blue background, while in Horse Ploughing at Nivernais there is very true-to-life and complicated background of mountains and trees and field. It has more of a fore, middle, and background, while Ballerine has one subject and that’s it. I like them both for different reasons. I like the master’s painting because the pose and color scheme helped give it feeling and mood, and the solid background drew more focus to the details on the girl. But I also liked that the master payed attention to the little detail in the background because it made all aspects of the piece important.