Lesson 1: Manly Church

Lesson 1: Indoor Exercise - Manly Church

Again we all worked from a photo reference.

The assignment called for doing four sketches:

1. Continuous line - draw without lifting the pen from the page.
2. Abstracting negative spaces - paint the sky shape and then the window shapes
3. Abstracting positive spaces - paint the silhoutte of the building with a light color, paint the midtown shadow shapes, and then add the darks.
4. Constructing volumes - draw the main volumes in pencil and guidelines for all the windows, and then add ink. 

Continuous Line

Negative Spaces

Positive Shapes

I really like the look of the positive shapes without any ink lines. This technique of working in three or four values is a classic method of working in watercolor used by English artists in 1800's.

I ran out of time and didn't do #4. Constructing volumes. Instead I went straight to the outdoor exercises.

Jim