Topic Four: Landscape - Assignment #1 Street or Garden

Topic Four: Landscape - Assignment #1: Street or Garden

So for my assignment, I decided to use what I'd gotten from our Vizcaya visit to portray a much different aspect of the gardens, and landscape in general. Near that overpass that connects the Metro to Vizcaya, there were these great trees, and they were all covered in ferns, like a lovely sort of miniature forest of its own. When I noted the same ferns on the trees near the fountains we were seated by in the gardens, I hit upon it. We don't really notice it, and even less so in a garden where there are plenty of things they actually want you to be looking at, that there are tiny ecosystems, worlds that are all around us. I wanted that landscape to be my focus for this.

My 30 minute on-site writing and drawings respectively.

Now. No one understands. The frustration that coursed through me. When I went to move my process pictures onto my computer and only found these three on my phone. I have no idea why the few I took in its earlier stages didn't save but? I am livid.

At the very least, you can see I took heavy reference from the original sketch I did at the site. I didn't want to look up images of what any of the plants or the bark looked like, so I went off memory and the markings I made in the sketch. I particularly love getting bold with perspective on these sorts of scenes. I also haven't used charcoal in quite some time (because it gets everywhere and is very taxing to clean), but I love creating textures and contrast with this medium, and I felt it was perfect for the sort of lighting I wanted to get across. Man did I miss it. And man, was it messy. 

The process was basically setting a pencil sketch down, going over it with pen for the nitty gritty foliage details (boy this whole piece did wonders to my ever encroaching, or firmly set in, carpal tunnel and/or tendonitis). Then coming in with the charcoal and setting in the base shading lightly, and coming in again with it with more force. When my hand strayed too far, I used my eraser to fix things up (and then give it a quick pass with my fingers to smooth out that sort of sharp look the eraser leaves behind. Though I left those marks in the dark background. I wanted the appearance of light rays piercing into the dark). Around the end, I even added some droplets of water on the leaves to get that feeling of heat and humidity through.

And as for this image? It keeps turning itself on its side when I upload it to this website. But it's...in the correct alignment on my computer. Why this. Why is it doing that. I'm so sorry. But this is what it looked like upon completion.

Then, since I had to get this thing to class as cleanly as possible, and that was a lot of charcoal on the paper, my dad helped me apply a coat of Krylon glaze on it so it wouldn't smudge itself into obscurity.

And here it is, as presented in class. I was pretty pleased with how the critique went overall (particularly that no one would ever guess 'Vizcaya' when looking at this first glance). The only disappointing point was the attempt at faded trees in the background. As I said in class, the point of the lighting as it was and the angle was to create a scene that looked suffused in light. But I agree that there were other ways to go about it (maybe some faint shading on the undersides and just the faintest textures leading up the trunks). But overall, I enjoyed the experience and the assignment.