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Thursday, October 6, 2016

Lesson 3: Indoor Exercise 2, Capitoline Hill, Rome

Lesson 3: Indoor Exercise 2, Capitoline Hill, Rome

We worked from a supplied photo reference. Again we were to work through the drawing using the lesson concepts - a structured way of working, guidelines, and measuring to get better proportions.

I first did a setup sketch to lay the building out in my journal and set the proportions of the building pieces. I used a Pilot erasable FriXion orange highlighter pen so that I could later erase the setup lines.

I then added ink on top of the setup lines using a black Zebra disposable brush pen with a fine felt tip. I chose this pen because it is capable of making both fine and bold marks and because it is waterproof.

Capitoline Hill
Notice I adjusted the ink lines as I drew and didn't follow the orange guidelines if I thought the angle or proportion was wrong (for instance I adjusted the height of the tower and the angle of the right staircase).

Next I erased the orange setup highlighter lines with a hair dryer.

Capitoline Hill ink
Boy, that sure works great to get a clean drawing. It's much better than trying to erase pencil. You don't smudge the ink.

Finally I added watercolor. 

Capitoline Hill watercolor
I layed in the sky first (working wet-on-wet) with a 5/8 inch filbert brush and blotted out a few clouds with a tissue. I used the same brush to paint the light tan of the upper story. I then darkened the mix with a little cerulean blue to add the shadows. The small details were done with a #6 round brush.

Doing a measured setup solves a lot of problems and saves time because you don't have to do separate analytical pencil sketches to work out the proportions and placement of the major building elements. However, measuring always takes longer than just going for it in ink. It's the old problem of speed versus accuracy. If you have the time, however, it is really worth it to do a setup, because the more you know about the subject and its underlying structure and purpose, the better.

The other advantage of doing a setup is that it is a good warmup exercise. It gets both observational skills and hand-eye coordination going before you draw with ink. 

Jim

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