Proudly Unaccredited
I was invited to pose as Mr. Turner the British painter at the Shadbolt Center earlier this month and gave a lecture-workshop for 60-70 people. Drawing tall ships. Fun to be dressed in 19th century costume with top hat. Maybe the look will make a comeback.
“Tony’s Art School” Shadbolt Center Burnaby
April 11 – a series of 8 Wednesdays:
Drawing in Morning 10 am-1 pm.
Painting (either acrylic or Watercolor) in PM 2 pm- 5 pm
Call Shadbolt Center in Burnaby or email tony@tonyoregan.com for details
Composition is, of course, an important skill to develop. Many books have been written on the subject. DaVinci is reported to have recommended that young painters look at mold stains on the walls and try to see landscapes. This is sometimes referred to as ‘forced’ or re-purposed composition. Henry Rankin Poore wrote on it in the 1800’s and is worth looking up.
The example here begins with a random picture of flowers. This is analyzed by gestural sketch. Next, look at the gestural study until you imagine a completely different subject image based on the original compositional layout. This seems a bit forced at the start, but it becomes easier and quite enjoyable as you do it more often. In this case one can see ‘a race between two cyclists watched by spectators.‘
This was a ‘quick and dirty’ demonstration of one method for designing and making ink drawings using various texturing techniques. (My students did a much better job taking their time – about 1.5 hours). It’s like etching.
Since we live on the coast we need to have ways of drawing boats. Drawing boats can be tricky because they involve ‘compound curves’. This means that traditional linear perspective needs a little help from some other concepts. Here is the way I approach it: I use the ‘infinity sign’ method if the boats are close to eye-level, the ‘leaf’ method if the viewer is above the boats, and the ‘beak’method if the boat is coming directly at the viewer, such as on a beach tide-line.