Perspective

One thing that brought about that post was a simple simple basic basic idea in drawing: perspective.

This is almost too embarrassing to admit, but my drawings of the shrimp boats just were looking so funky. But I didn't want them funky! Last night I went into a rage just beating it to death. I hit it, scrunched charcoal all over it. I was trying to put all the things into practice that I know are supposed to be fundamentals: tonal composition, unity, focusing on larger planes, not over-doing details, having an idea, abstraction, meaning, depth in atmosphere, loss of detail in distance, etc.. and lots of other stuff. Really trying my best. But no matter, it was just off. They are all warped and off. Unintentionally! They are good enough, that if you didn't know better you'd think I was trying to be artsy. Dallas might have bought one, if painted, and hung it up in her house. Me giving that to somebody would be horrible! I don't want to do that!

All along I haven't wanted to paint photos. I was thinking I was doomed.

And so the story continues... I was at B&N reading about software stuff in the software section. These two ladies were having the most annoying conversation (funny, I just remembered it was about teaching!) It wasn't a conversation, one lady was talking. I filtered it out. Until. Until she began hacking between each sentence. She was turning away from her friend to hack my way. It was a dry hack. High pitched. Just piercing. And it went on and on. The bark came after sentences, not paragraphs. They were like exclamation points. Triple ones!!!

I thought if I got up, she'd know she was annoying me. I had to come up with a good reason to suddenly leave what looked like a peaceful leisurely reading. I grabbed my phone and stood up. I think her head turned my way. I opened the phone, put it to my ear and said quietly, "Hello?" Then I thought, I hope they know about phones that buzz and don't ring. I hurried away before I had to say anything more. I might have put in a couple, "Yeah, sure. Uhh huhhs."

The next chair I found was in the art section. And, needless to say, I eyed a book on "Perspective". Before I type my arms off, I'll just say, I've been, as a good modern abstractionist should, ignoring, no unintentionally violating, rules of perspective. I think the reason, Gregg Kreutz didn't have "perspective" in his Nine rules "to help you solve all your painting problems" was that it is so "no duh" that he shouldn't have to mention it.

I saw a simple drawing of a cup next to a bottle, I think. The cup was drawn from one eyepoint, the bottle another. On first glance it looked fine. But the author said, "This is off." I said, "Whatcha mean?"

And BOOM! That's it! It was discombobulated (sp?) It wasn't composition. It was off-kilter because your brain knows something is whacky when one thing is tilted one way and one another, but they aren't tilted. Just off or something.

The abstractionists took advantage of this, namely Cezanne (which hit its hey day in Cubism)... but they *knew* what they were doing.

Ack. Stop typing Keith!!!