Ahh, perspective drawing. Is there anything in this world I find more frustrating?
Without a proper foundation all else is lost. Meaning: It doesn’t matter how great a painter you are if your ellipses are off!
Most people can’t put their finger on it, but they know something about a painting is just sorta well -OFF!
It’s usually the perspective.
The question is are you viewing something from above, below or directly in front of you? With most paintings, it’s all three and if any are off, it will be the first thing people notice.
A really good rendering takes me hours. I find it so difficult. Ya know it’s probably like starting a new exercise routine. You simply can’t do it at first because your muscles aren’t strong enough. Well pretty much the same thing with drawing. Your muscles are week and the more you practice the better you get. I think I sprained my muscles today! I had to take out my vacuum because I had so many eraser shreds! Some days I’d like to just cheat. There are many ways to get around drawing, but I know the only person I’d be cheating is myself, so, I suffered through it today and I am sure I am now a little bit better than I was 4 hours ago! I once read a book on Van Gogh that said he would sometimes do 20-50 sketches a day….over and over and over again…strengthening those muscles. Of course he was also most likely suffering from a bi-polar disorder and obsessive compulsiveness….there is always that :)
So I did my perspective drawing and then I added the necessary details:
I had about 30 minutes left from that point, so I decided to try something different:
I usually create one shadow at a time. For instance, I would only do the lemon. I would start with a medium tone yellow and water it down for the light areas and add a dark purple for the shaded areas. Then I would start and finish the lime, then maybe move to the pitcher and work on it start to finish…one area at a time until I completed the painting..
So applying shadows to the entire painting is a different approach for me. I think in one way it helps to establish lights and darks throughout the whole painting, but I usually use different colors for every single shadow in a painting. I’m not sure if uniformity (meaning all blue in this case) is good or bad…I will soon learn tomorrow.
The rest of the painting should move fairly quickly from here, it’s just the foundation drawing which sucks up a lot of my time. When I was doing a painting a day, I wasn’t spending enough time on composition. We shall see by the finished product if one can tell a difference in my work.
Wish me luck! I hope this experiment of technique works!
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