The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [109]
Another project: An ugly corner as cityscape
You might also enjoy trying a cityscape similar to the student drawing The Arrow Hotel in Figure 11-24. This drawing was the result of an assignment to my students to “Go out and find a truly ugly corner.” (Regrettably, ugly corners are all too easy to find in most of our cities.) Using the perceptual skills of seeing edges, spaces, and relationships of angles and proportions, students were directed to draw exactly what they saw—including signs, lettering, everything—placing great emphasis on negative space. The project was completed by following the directions for the cityscape provided below.
I believe you’ll agree that ugliness was transformed into something approaching beauty in the student’s drawing. This is another instance of the transformative power of the artist’s way of seeing. One of the great paradoxes of art is that subject matter is not of prime importance in creating beauty.
Directions for the cityscape:
1. Find your corner, the uglier the better.
2. Sit in your car to do the drawing, or use a folding stool to sit on the sidewalk.
3. You will need an 18" x 24" board to draw on, and an 18" x 24" piece of ordinary white paper. Draw a format edge about an inch in from the edges of the paper. Use a pencil to draw the cityscape. A viewfinder and a transparent grid will help in sighting angles and proportions.
4. Use negative space almost exclusively to construct the drawing. All details, such as telephone lines, lettering, street signs, and girders, are to be drawn in negative space. This is the key to success in this drawing. (But that is true for almost every bit of drawing that you do!) Remember that negative space, clearly observed and drawn, reminds the viewer of that for which we all long—unity, the most basic requirement of a work of art.
5. When you have finished the drawing, return home and choose a piece of 18" x 24" colored paper or colored cardboard. Transfer your on-site drawing to the colored paper, using carbon paper or graphite transfer paper, available in art supply stores. Be sure to transfer your format edge to the colored ground.
6. If you want to try a simple complementary arrangement as used in The Arrow Hotel, choose two colored pencils that harmonize with your paper, one dark and one light. The Arrow Hotel provides a satisfying color scheme because the color is balanced: the yellow-green of the paper is balanced by the dark, dull red-violet pencil, and the light tones are supplied by the cream-colored pencil, which relates to the yellow-green ground and acts as a near-complement to the red-violet.
About cityscapes, American abstract artist Stuart Davis said:
“I am an American, born in Philadelphia of American stock. I paint what I see in America.
“Some things that have made me want to paint . . . skyscraper architecture, the brilliant color of gasoline stations; chain store fronts and taxi-cabs; electric signs . . . Earl Hines’ hot piano and jazz music in general.”
—Stuart Davis, 1943
A half-serious caution: If you draw in a public place, you will soon be besieged by spectators wondering what in the world you are drawing—and why. I can’t help you with this problem.
One thing is certain: A lonely person need only to start drawing in public places to be lonely no more.
Because most people believe they prefer bright colors, the following is a difficult concept to grasp:
Just as negative spaces are equally important as objects, dull colors (low-intensity colors) are equally important as bright (high-intensity) colors.
The simplest way to reduce the intensity of a given hue is to add a neutral gray or black. This method, however, often seems to drain color from a hue in the same way that twilight dims and weakens colors.
A second way is to mix a color with some of its complementary hue. This method seems to leave the color unabated, and richly, strongly dull—not weakly dull. Low-intensity hues mixed this way greatly assist in harmonizing color schemes.