TIP 5/10: When Buildings Twist, Multiple Vanishing Points!

Welcome to a series of 10 Sketching Tips!

#5: When Buildings Twist

Key to this concept is to remember a basic principle of perspective, that lines that are parallel to each other appear to converge to the same point.

Quick trip back to Venice. I'm standing on the upper level of the Basilica San Marco. Using my pencil, I extend the receding lines on the left side to find one vanishing point on my eye level line.

Then I use my pencil to extend the lines of the building on the right, and what happens? I get TWO vanishing points, both on my eye level line!  

So, what does this mean? It means the two buildings are actually not parallel to each other in plan (like a map view)... each facade has generated it's own vanishing point. 
Key also is that BOTH vanishing points are on my eye level line--yet another good reason to mark where your eye level line (aka Horizon Line) is located in your sketch!

Does using the two VP's for this sketch make a huge difference? Probably not, as they are so close to each other. The only way I could have realized this was by drawing it!! BUT this concept in perspective is extremely helpful to understand when you are sketching anywhere that was not built on a grid plan, like most of Europe, India, and many other places in the world.


Let's look quickly at another example in Italy. This is Civita di Bagnoregio, an amazing tiny hilltown north of Rome where I teach a sketching workshop every summer. This view is of the narrow main street behind the church. The buildings twist and turn in plan along a curving pedestrian street.

This is a diagram I made in the workshop to explain the concept of multiple vanishing points. I used my pencil to extend the vanishing lines (usually using the tops or bottoms of windows or stone courses), and lo and behold, I get three separate VP's, each on my eye level line, one for each building.

Here is a break down of the three VP's...

In summary, it's easiest to remember that when:
--the building rotates in plan toward the left, the VP shifts to the left along your eye level line
--the building rotates in plan toward the right, the VP also shifts to the right along your eye level line.

I hope this explanation helps! Happy Sketching!
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Sketches from Orvieto

I arrived in Italy in June and made my way straight to the beautiful hilltown of Orvieto, north of Rome. Across from my hotel was the amazing duomo, famous for its facade and the horizontal banding inside and out. I went a bit nuts with this sketch, as I only had 1.5 hours till my taxi would arrive, so my pencil and watercolor flew!! (I've added this sketch again at the bottom of the post so that you can click on it and see the detail--same for all these sketches!)

I walked around town and did 5 sketches all in the same day...I was trying out a new sketchbook, the 7"x10" Pentalic AquaJournal--the paper I knew well but the format and size were totally new to me. It occurred to me that I might not have enough pages in the sketchbook to last for 6 weeks of travel, so I decided to do 2 images per page...in the end, it became a format I would repeat everywhere I went, as I loved being able to see sketches side by side.

Below are my 5 sketches from Orvieto (makes me think I should always sketch with jet lag!)  

To the left is my favorite of the sequence sketches, done late in the day in the heat...

For me, Urban Sketching is about capturing my experiences on paper and learning about what I see through the act of drawing and painting...so all these are sketched and painted on location.

 This was the view from my hotel window!

The taxi arrived on time, and I headed off to Civita for the workshop! (Click on the duomo interior sketch to see the detail...)

Here come more posts...at last!

[by Stephanie Bower, Seattle]  I am finally back in my studio, after over two months of travel mostly for teaching and some for work. Alas, it was pretty much impossible for me to post ot the blog while traveling. Days were packed and often I had little to no internet! I did manage to post some to Instagram, as it loaded on my phone when the blog or Facebook or Flickr would not...so please, I invite you to see my posts on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stephanieabower/

For the fifth summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to teach a workshop in the amazing Italian hilltown of Civita di Bagnoregio. It is a speck of a town, you can walk it from end to end in about 5 minutes, and it is only accessible by a steep foot bridge and thus has no cars. You feel transported back to the Middle Ages, but for all the tourists. Civita is remarkably picturesque, Rick Steves says it is his favorite Italian hilltown.

This year, I taught two workshops back-to-back, and since it was roasting hot, we sketched inside the cool, dark chiesa and worked on really "Understanding Perspective"!  I love the simplicity and scale of this church, and it is filled with interesting relics from the past. There was likely an Etruscan temple on this spot nearly 3000 years ago.


Below is how I teach people to start perspective sketches--I start a sketch like this with what I call drawing the "Shape of the Space". Then I use the eye level line and VP to construct the bones of the sketch. You can see how I draw the entire ellipse to help me draw the arches.

I kept this drawing and colors very simple, letting the openings in the arches recede by painting them a cool blue...painting like an architect to make sure the spaces read.

More sketches will follow, including a dozen or so from Italy, then Holland, then England...and of course, there was Chicago...

Thanks to everyone who participated in the workshops and to The Civita Institute for their support of this opportunity!  Ciao, tutti!

And suddenly...Italy!!!

Even though I've been preparing for this workshop for about a year, it somehow caught me by surprise when it was time to pack and jet off to Italy! This will be my 5th summer of teaching in Civita, and this year, there will be two, 5-day workshops almost back-to-back!

Most instructors will tell you it's important to arrive early to a new teaching location when possible...to get used to all the variables that change from one place to another: the dryness of the air and how that impacts painting (in Singapore, I remember Gail Wong having to rethink how she would teach her workshop, as the air was so humid that the paint would not dry!), to figure out the colors of a new place (I had a real ah-ha moment when I started using Raw Umber (W&N) in Italy...duh, Umber in UMBRIA!), and to generally warm up your sketching hand before you have to draw on demand for workshop participants (instructors notoriously do their worst work when teaching!)

I arrived in Italy yesterday and challenged myself today to do as much as I could here in the beautiful hill town of Orvieto. I have been here several times before, so I knew my way around...that helped! And it's close to where I'll teach the workshops, which is where I'll head tomorrow. It usually takes me about a week of sketching to get the right "feel" for a place, but as it turns out, today was a good day! 

Spectacular view from my hotel room, this was last
night's moon shining on the famous Duomo,
after all the crowds were gone.

This is the first time I've used this new size (7"x10") of my favorite sketchbook, the Pentalic Aquajournal (descriptions are on my blog). I love this paper, as I can draw in pencil easily on it, and since it is a true 140lb cold press paper, it takes watercolor really well. I was worried I hadn't brought enough paper for 5.5 weeks of sketching, so I had the idea this morning to do four across the spread.

This is the order in which they were done, reading left to right:  1 -- 4 -- 2 -- 3.  I'm super happy with how these turned out individually and collectively, maybe I should sketch with jet lag more often!

I'll be making lots of quick posts on Facebook and Instagram (@stephanieabower), as well as posting images and photos on Flickr...should you want to follow along! Ciao!!

The sketch on the far right was my favorite of the day...I love that yellow sky and
how the paints dried with some texture...

DRAW CIVITA 2016, perspective sketching workshop in Italy!

Whew!

I just finished a slew of back-to-back work and book deadlines and now find myself happily thinking about sketching again.  I'm already planning for next year's Urban Sketchers symposium in Manchester, England...but before that is what will be the fourth annual

DRAW CIVITA 2016... June 24-30, 2016

This is an amazing 5+ day intensive perspective sketching and watercolor workshop, set in one of the most incredible places on the planet, Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy.  

Civita has recently been featured in The New York Times and also on the PBS Newshour here in the US.  Travel guru Rick Steves writes that it is his favorite Italian hilltown, and for good reason...amazing views, medieval stone buildings and streets, great food...and well, it's Italy!

I'll be posting images and more info about the workshop in the next few weeks.  For more information, click here Draw Civita 2016.

Only 4-5 spots are open, so let me know ASAP if you are interested.  Ciao!

Orvieto Today...

This morning, I arrived in the hilltown of Orvieto by car, thanks to a happy coincidence that Felice, Margarita, and their grandaughter Chiara (from Seattle) were heading to the same place--grazie!

Orvieto is a lovely town, and its crowning glory is the Duomo, famous for its striped stone sides (enough to give me a migraine...), and it's glittering mosaic facade.


I sat and did 3 sketches of it today, two in color--cheating, as most of the church is cropped by a street! When I started, the facade was backlit, and when I needed to paint, there was already light hitting the front...so, it gets a little heavy as I try to add shadows, then adjust the value of the street in front. I think I'll try this again tomorrow.

When I was just about finished, I looked down at my sketch and decided it would be nice to get a picture of me and the sketch in place, heard some english nearby, looked up, and asked the closest person if they would take my photo--amazingly, it happened to be the lovely actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (I had just seen her in a movie with Kevin Costner about two months ago, but did not let on that I recognized her), who very kindly took several shots from different angles, even retaking some after I tied back my wild, crazy-looking-woman-in-Italian-heat hair. If she ever reads this blog, grazie mille!

By late in the day, I sat in the Piazza Republica, ate a slice of pizza, and did a line drawing--I'll have to go back tomorrow evening to paint it, as the light was already gone when I was ready to paint!

Tomorrow, the museums and caves thanks to an all-museum pass from Ben Cameron!
Ciao--

Four Views of the Piazza San Donato

I've been spending lots of time in Civita trying to learn about its architectural history. Lots of books, including some I stumble through in Italian, lots of walking around, and a fair amount of sketching (although I need to do more). 

The main piazza here was an Etruscan then Roman forum nearly 3000 years ago, and it is still the heart of all the activity in this tiny town.  Tonight, there is a jazz concert here, and the entire town and visitors will turn out in the piazza.

I decided to do a series of wide angle drawings of this ancient space, with notes that would describe some of the buildings whose history I was learning about.  Here are four images of the Piazza San Donato, one view in each direction, turning counter clock-wise. My favorite is the last one.  I hope to do more project drawings in this same format.

And you can see how I eventually figured out the color palette, including shadows and shade-- a lot more gray than I expected! And I switched from Burnt Sienna to Quinacridone Burnt Orange for the glow...

Looking East toward the Chiesa San Donato

Looking North toward the medieval Priest's House and prison

Looking West toward the medieval house turned Town Hall in the Renaissance.

Looking South toward the grand Palazzo Alemanni

Draw Civita 2014, images...

The drawing workshop ended on Thursday last week--it was 
an amazing and wonderful group in an amazing and wonderful place!  
Here is an assortment of images from the five+ days in Civita di Bagnoregio~~
(I apologize that blogger doesn't let me arrange these in an elegant way...)

 

  

It finally starts today...Draw Civita 2014

This is something I've wanted to do my entire adult life:  travel and teach sketching.  

A year and a half in the making, together with the amazing support of one Stephen Day, Architect and past president of NIAUSI/The Civita Institute, 6 workshop participants are showing up today in this amazing tiny hill town of Civita di Bagnoregio.  We'll draw and paint, learn perspective and basic watercolor for 5 full days, have some amazing meals, and marvel at these ancient stones and dramatic setting.

And yes, the idea is to do this next year too (anyone up for Draw Civita 2015?)...and the year after that...and...

After the workshop, I'll be here till August 22 working on my fellowship project, an illustrated architectural walking guide to the town...grazie mille, Civita Institute!!

Can you imagine me hauling my groceries up this bridge?

Civita Institute's Sala Grande

This isn't my usual style of sketching (where is Steven Reddy when you need him?), but it's what came out on the paper this afternoon.  The Sala Grande is a beautiful, tall space that functions as NIAUSI's library and work space.  The focal point of the room (other than the breathtaking views out the windows) is the tall fireplace, faced with the volcanic basaltina stone. 

I first saw this fireplace in a beautiful pencil drawing done by Olson Kundig partner, Alan Maskin, who was a student here as well as a NIAUSI fellowship recipient.  This fireplace is attributed to the famous 16th c. architect Vignola, who worked on the Villa Lante not too far from here.

I love the little window in the back wall of the fireplace, not uncommon in the fireplaces here in Civita.  The little window provided light to work by while one sat near the warmth of the fire in the winter...