What is an atmospheric (Aerial) perspective?

It is basically how the environment is effected by a surrounding atmosphere. Objects farther from the viewer appear lighter than those nearer. But it's really better just to read some material and try and experience it.
Here is an amazing one with lots of examples. The site itself has plenty of wonderful related articles.

Here you can find an example of atmospheric perspective used in Chalk art. And some great tips.

Illustration Friday: Summer

I'm finally on to the Illustration Friday projects.
This week's theme is Summer.

I began my usual brainstorm with some keywords: sea, watermelon, ice cream, fruit cocktails, berries, sand, beach, slippers. After that I did a quick sketch of every keyword, laying the basic composition.

At this point my task was to draw anything, anything at all, just to start the engines running. So this is the outcome. It didn't take me a lot to finish it, but I did spent some time doing the watermelon. I couldn't reach the full redness of it with just a red pencil so I added some orange and some brown to it. It made the red look way redder.

Obviously, there are some things that are wrong here... The watermelon black stripe shouldn't be black but a darker or lighter green. And not as straight as I did it. Also the seeds should be darker. The shadow of the slippers should be on the other side and the watermelon shadow should be darker. The handle of the umbrella seems to not be a part of the umbrella itself; the top of it adds to this effect. The umbrella itself is very problematic: it is unclear if this is the shading umbrella or a cocktail one. Slippers seem to be different in size. And the sun could be less lime but more orange...

Linear perspective drawing: what is it and how it's done?

So how one deals with perspective?
First - the quote:
"Perspective Drawing is a technique used to represent three-dimensional images on a two-dimensional picture plane." (source) Thus it's the ability to "move" a 3d object of a real life to a flat, 2d surface.

There are two main aspects of perspective that help one draw realistically: the eye level line and the perspective point (s).

Eye level has a crucial impact on a composition. It can be placed on the upper part if the drawing space, the central or the bottom part. It helps in creating a balanced or imbalanced image. It can help emphasize the importance of each item presented on the image or help a viewer to understand better the position he/she is taking while looking at the image.

One perspective point is when there is one focal point where all the lines meet.

Two perspective points can create a more complex and dramatic work.

The three point perspective is even more dramatic and complicated.
In most of them you can't even see the vanishing point since the perspective does not allow it.

Obviously, every geometrical form has a perspective; a cube, a triangle, a circle, a trapeze and others. But since most of the figures can be squeezed in either a cube or an ellipse, most of them are based on these two.

another thing to perspective is that it creates the sense pf participation in viewer (The purpose of perspective in art). So when and if you want the viewer to be part of the event you present, you should consider your perspective.

Let's talk perspective, shading and proportion

For a while now I've been in this weird state of not knowing what to do. I really wanted to join an additional art program, but for some reason nothing felt right. I was browsing the web for several days util I realized that the thing I really need to do is to focus on three main themes: perspective, shading and proportion. These are the subjects that fascinate me the most at this point. So in my following posts I will be exploring these subjects and giving links to my sources.

So it might be something like I did with my Flowers project in 2012.

Good luck to me and you as well.

Don't be afraid of your own ideas.

Even if you think it's a bad one. Really.

I am reading an Artist's way by Julia Cameron right now. The book is inspiring and a great call for action for those who feel stuck with their life and are ready to make a change. Or for artists who's seek for inspiration. One of the author suggests - and she's not the first one or the only one - is that one shouldn't be afraid of his or hers ideas. It is said that it's better to have a bad one than none at all. Because a path to a good idea usually goes through a bad one.

The important thing is to let go if perfectionism and execute something.

I bare the thought in mind while working in illustration for "moving on from Drawspace to whatever".

I didn't really know what illustration should go there and, as usual, I've been looking for the perfect illustration, sketching while thinking. Obviously I didn't go with the first idea but since my goal is to practice both illustration and idea generating I decided to draw something. I made peace with my self that the idea is original at al, but it's still something and that this is my next step forward.

Muscule memory in drawing: practice makes it perfect

In the beginning of the year I picked up a new project. It's a 365 drawings a day. I got the idea in Natali Ratkovski's blog who herself picked it up in Flickr. Anyways, the idea is to draw something every single day to become better.

I did it for month or two and then stopped since I was overloaded at that period. But during this time I realized something.

There is a term in sports called Muscle Memory.

(reference)

It means that the more you practice the more your body remembers. If the muscle memory is correct, then even after a long period of no training your body will remember how to do an exercise. I guess that the same goes with drawing: the more you draw - no matter how bad the result is - the more your body (hand, eyes, brain) remembers. And this training is the one that makes you perfect. Both in sports and arts.

Moving on from Drawspace to something else.

As you know, I recently (almost) finished a Drawspace art program (the free part) to which I dedicated a year and a half. Now when I'm (almost) done with it, it's time to figure out what to do next.

Over this period of time I tried to get involved with additional projects but, as you can imagine, it didn't work quite well. But now when I'm Drawspace free I can start doing other things.

So the first thing in my to do list is to go over my draft posts and see if all of them are still relevant. Usually, when I get an idea I try to write a draft of it as soon as possible. This way my list is always full with ideas. But recently I get a little confused with my list because it has all sorts of drafts - those form the past years of blogging that were scheduled but never published and those scheduled for the future. All of them were scheduled to a specific date but as it happens, a plan is a plan but the execution does not always fit it. So my first task is to go over my drafts and see what is going on there.

My second task for the next week is to figure out what program I'd like to join to keep on drawing. At this point I guess I don't want to learn but to practice what I've learned during my time with Drawspace. I am really hoping to start drawing with Illustration Friday community and finally join Natali Ratkovski's flashmobs (weekly basis for both of them). So wish me luck with that.

That is my plan for the next week. Obviously, my Mid year plan-do-review faze is coming soon an I will be really able to see where I am at at this point.

Hopefully every post will be followed with a new illustration.

Imaginary drawing: How to draw without pan and paper (and without a digital tablet)

Something amazing happened several days ago. And when it happened - I felt happy. I realized that I'm on a right way.

(source)

See, what happened is that I was walking down the street and suddenly looked up a tree. It was the tree I walked by every single day. I saw it everyday. But that day I looked at it a saw a shape. And then another one. And another one. Before I new it I was looking for the place where all it's branches came from. And only then I realized that I was drawing that tree in my mind.

It was the first time in years it happened to me. And it made me very happy.

I didn't have time to give it a second glance, but I felt so good with myself I could stop smiling the rest of the walk. I was drawing without a pen ad paper. I was drawing with my eyes.

How cool is that?

Developing crativity: Crazy Architect.

I found this exercise here. Since it's in Russian I will explain the idea behind it.
The purpose is to play a "Crazy architect". You choose 10 words and use it as a base to the structure a building. For example: Green, large, banana, dog, skirt, triangle, sky, liquid, pencil, juice.

You combine all these and create a house/building.

This is what I came with.

I didn't do an association work since I knew it was suppose to be a structure of some kind, so I thought withing these boundaries. I did some pre-sketching session of everything just to see all objects in front of me and I decided to set for blue color for sky. Also I thought that there will be no addition like fences or pools or anything like that.As you can see I wrote down the plan in the right corner of my sheet so basically, all I had to do is draw the house and then fill it with color.

And so I did.

The sketch is so faint I had to Photoshop and although it didn't help that much you can still see some of it.

And this is the final sketch.

You can see the banana-like upper window, and the skirt-like something around the house, and the Juice box-like chimney. And of course, the Pencil walls. I Photoshoped it too just to make the color stronger. What really was important here for me is the experience of creation. I wont be even judge the originality if the idea but this is the first step for me.

P.S. I totally forgot about the dog element. Oh well, next time :)