Carrasco Studio

Journey to Far Cathay

 

Journey to Far Cathay (maybe)                                         ©Jennifer M. Carrasco 2008

 

I painted this on a panel for a door to a little girl's bedroom.  Of course I made up a story for it.

The princess is sailing for Far Cathay to be married to a barbarian prince.  Hence the pensive attitude. 

She is accompanied by her duenna, the old crow in the bow, and an unreliable crew of flighty birds.  She may never arrive in Cathay. 

Who knows, the sailor birds may lose their compass and sail to Tasmania. Or drop off the edge of the world.

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/17/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.

Drawing Lesson 6, The Secret Double Helix. Angles and Units

  Drawing Lesson 6.   Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

 
Chamboard double staircase     Leonardo DaVinci      

Spirals..and another image leading to an infinite journey, and a metaphor for  any search.  Remember, "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Ecco?....a spiraling novel, like a rose petal curved around rose petal.  And the Chambered Nautilus that my friend Theresa Cheek featured in her blog , http://artstheanswer.blogspot.com/2010/06/shell-game.html

              

  I especially like this sea creature as a metaphor because it always is connected by a thread of it's corporeal body to the first chamber it created... from the beginning this thread runs through each chamber to the last.....an excellent concept for the artist, who always brings his or her past experiences into the now....some events bumping and jostling to be expressed, some remaining in the dark and closed up forever.  It also is stellar example of Fibonacci geometry, but don't get me started.

At the end of this lesson, I challenged the class to copy  the first drawing in this blog that I thought MIGHT be by Leonardo DaVinci, and MIGHT be a design done by him for Francis 1st of France for the double stairway of Chambord, a castle Francis was building in the Loire valley.  To my delight, Ben Shimizu looked it up on his phone and I was right!  Please excuse my preening.

Keep up the effort in homework...you'll be repaid in spades!   Look at ballerina drawing...did you stare long enough to “see” the negative spaces?  Was it more difficult to draw organic angles and lines?  Can you find angles in organic forms relative to horizontal and vertical edges of the format?  How about basic units? (perhaps smaller increments in organic forms)   Discuss Chapter 8....Right brained? left brained=Relationships and ratios...accept the visual paradox of  foreshortening, more acute angles, more narrow or wider areas and shapes than we “know”...linear formal perspective needs to be taught in another class.  This, for me, is the hardest skill to teach, but once you get it, it becomes automatic.

Even Mantegna had to struggle with foreshortening....close but not quite!

2.  Look at the Hammershoie drawing.  Danish...serene, very little color in his paintings as well.   Mark off (LIGHTLY) the vertical divisions in the room...judge by distance from center or edge of paper format.. How far down on the right side of the paper is the corner of the floor and wall...mark with a dot.note how he measures  the angle of the  Pick your Basic Unit (top of door).  Measure space from door to corner.....mark with a dot in several places.  Then go to the door (vertical...top and bottom and mark with a dot where the corners of the open door end. (use your basic unit!)     Measure the angle of the top and the bottom of the door (and the basic unit) with a Horizontal read (don’t be fooled by the top of the basic unit...IT IS NOT HORIZONTAL!)  Keep checking with your basic unit and the vertical and horizontals,,,,work from large to small.

Here's another Hammershoi painting to look at...in color this time...just for general tastiness.  I do, do, love his subtle pallate.

3.  Actual open door drawing...from the hallway looking in.  Use your viewfinder, close one eye and look carefully before you start,,look at the negative spaces..  Don’t “poke” your measuring pencil into your invisible picture plane.   Choose a basic unit and make some measurements where you mark with dots...i.e. end of floor, top of door, etc. Check angles with the verticals and horizontals of the edges of your paper. Draw only what you see and check often.  Keep your head and view in the same space and at the same angle.  Keep your clear plastic picture plane with you to double check questionable areas.

4.  Draw a dutch iris in a bottle with both hands.  Relationships. Yes!  No words!

5.  Drawing  Stacks of books......Focus on a basic unit this time..choose a basic unit...(check with me)..and compare angles with edges of the format.  Can use ruler if you want.

6. Tell story of Francis 1st and how Da Vinci lived with him in his old age.  Legend says he died in the king’s arms.  I picked this off the web (see first drawing)...wanted an old drawing (artist dead, public domain) and looked at it....reminded me of the hidden stairway Francis has designed for Chambord.....his palace on the Loire....he was a notorious womanizer, and chastity among his court was observed mostly in it’s breach.  I look at this drawing, it looks like Leonardo’s drawings, and it looks like Francis 1’st spiral stairway...I can hear the whispers of lovers and the swish of skirts along the steps.
 

Assigment  Read chapter 9.   I challenge you, I throw down my glove...copy this drawing of the spiral stairway...pick the basic unit, check the angles and connect with the past...Da Vinci, Francis 1st and the lovers of long ago. Or, for the timid, draw the corner of your kitchen (blah) using the skills we practiced in class...checking angles with the vertical and the hotizontal edges of your paper, and choosing a basic unit to measure distances, lengths and relationships.

And here's another stairway by MC Escher to drive you crazy.

Accentuate the Negative, Drawing Lesson 4

Lesson 4...Negative space

Rabbit Watching the Moon                                                                   ©Jennifer M Carrasco 4/6/05

Seeing the immense design of the world, one image of wonder mirrored by another image of wonder...the pattern of fern and of feather by the frost on the window pane, the six rays of the snowflake mirrored in the rock-crystal's six rayed eternity....seeing the pattern on the scaly legs of birds mirrored in the pattern of knot-grass, I asked myself, were those shapes molded by blindness?  are n0t these the "correspondences", to quote a phrase of Swedenborg, "whereby we may speak with angels? "                                                                                                                                   ...............Dame Edith Sitwell

Ok, People of the Drafting Boards....this is the Real #4 Drawing Lesson.  Last week was the third lesson but I put # 4, but when I also post this on Facebook, it gets too complicated (and I get too lazy) to change it.  Anyhow, what's a little plus or minus one way or the other.  Those of you who missed the last class, you can find equivalent exercises in Chapter 7.

1.  Review of 5 perceptual skills...edges, spaces, relationships, light and shadow (value), the  gestalt or whole.   Pure contour? Modified contour?

Look at toned drawings.....start medium light (use the toned paper as your medium value)  Show drawing on toned paper.  Show steps. Draw lightly!  We used shells, but a flower would be appropriate for those who missed the class.

Tone another sheet in your sketch book.....medium value.

  Negative space and positive space..why important?  We are not accustomed, as a culture,  to look at the negative space.  We are a verbal, objective culture.  Negative space is just as important in drawing as the positive or the object you are drawing. .  Beginners are often oblivious to the format...they focus so intently on the object that they are oblivious to the shape of the format, which largely controls the composition.  Imagine a tree  in various formats.   How would you place, for instance, a tall thin poplar in a long horizontal rectangle format.

To define a shell with drawing with white pencil around shapes,,the contours are shared edges with the positive (left brain) and the negative(Right brain)  Demo.
 
Where do you draw your entry and exit points?  Draw lightly! Remove negative space with eraser, then highlights.  Now, find the darkest areas and add to those.  Spray with fixative.

Basic Units.......  where does the line or lines come in.....Show on a larger foam core.  Then  using the basic unit to measure the angles and lengths of the sail, the boat, etc.

Show chair and negative spaces...discuss...pretend to pulverize the chair.

With viewfinder,draw the folding chair.  First find  the negative space by staring at it, then find some entry points for negative space.

Read chapter 7. 

The Spaces Between.  Mt. Arayat Climb, June 6, l980, Philippines  ©Jennifer M. Carrasco 6/6/1980

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/17/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.

#5 CandP Coffee House, Paradox Shock. Surreal Shells

Nothing like a paradox to stimulate a jaded palatte.  The taste of a lemony cold mix of vegetables in a fragrant hot risotto, a demure dress that's backless, an outsized wingback chair in a tiny room.  Something ajar, some salt on a piece of chocolate, raunchey jokes combined with impeccable manners.

CandP Watercolor class#5, 11/24/09

“Surreal Shells”

Paradox......the jolt of Strange. 


1. Photo of Girl sitting on Holstein on the Beach....grabs your intention.  Colbert’s photos....beautiful and strange

2.  Possibilities...place your shell studies from last week's class in an environment....it doesn’t have to be complex, just strange...

“Prime the Pump”  with my images....and suggestions....clothesline, hanging by string, hanging like lamps, put wheels on them, in the sky...shells as containers (of what?  sound, flowers?..) .. graphic shapes, abstracted shells, modeled?
3.  On a piece of typing paper..   Sit down, and for three minutes just think of as many “environments” as you can, writing them in a stream of consciousness.  (Set timer)  Now Choose ONE.

3.  Do a  pale graduated wash on your watercolor paper....any light stain.(and what is that?)

4.  On your large (1/4 sheet sized) piece of tissue sketch out your idea quickly (20 minutes max).....You can color your shells as wild as you want........just utilize the  4 CONCEPTS  of :

1.VALUE    2.OVERLAPPING   3. SIZE   4. COOL AND WARM COLOR

Show me your sketch before you transfer it LIGHTLY with your fabulous transfer paper onto your watercolor paper.  Start  with light, values, work from top to bottom.  Work wet into wet , use a large brush initially, and work fast.
Try to finish by the end of class.

Assignment:  Bring some photos of snow scenes and a sketch of an idea for a snow scene + 1/4 piece (not tiny, 1/4 piece of a 30x20” piece of GOOD taped paper.  Please Read pages 32-39....CAREFULLY.....really try to think stuff through.  This next class is your graduation class!

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 11/30/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.