During this stay-at-home time, I am continuing to post drawings from when I was a student a long time ago. Above are views of two Notre Dame cathedrals. I posted the first, Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité in Paris, a couple of months ago. The second is of the cathedral on the University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana, drawn a few months before graduation in the spring of 1966.
I accidentally deleted an email sent to me, I believe, from Augsburg. The sender was inquiring about a spherical perspective similar to the one shown above that I drew of Athens, Ohio, in 1976. The daughter, an art student, might be following this blog, and if so, I hope she will ask the sender to resend the email l so that I can respond properly. Thank you!
Here is another set of drawings of the iconic view looking down Via de’ Pecori toward the Duomo in Florence, Italy. While construction of the cathedral began in 1296, it was not completed until 1436 with the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. The first sketch above was done with a stub nib in 1965 and the second was drawn with a fine-tipped nib in 1995.
Continuing the series of drawings that shows the development of my sketch of a Nikon FE2 manual SLR. In the view above, the nobs and dials atop the camera body have been extended vertically from their positions in the previous sketch, and the neckstrap has been added.
The 55mm f2.8 micro-Nikkor lens is projected outward from the camera body, using the previously drawn central axis as a guide for the circular forms.
Finally, shading is added to indicate the dark mottled surfaces of the camera body as well as the curved forms of the knobs, dials, and lens barrel. The final touches included adding the Nikon logos on the prism housing and lens cap, and the etched FE2 on the camera body itself.
Note: This drawing was done using the Procreate app on an iPad with the Apple pencil stylus. This enabled me to capture stages of the drawing as jpeg images.
A brief interruption before I post the latter stages of my drawing of the Nikon FE2 SLR to honor the Chinese tradition of Qingming or Ching Ming (清明 – Tomb Sweeping Festival), which has been observed for more than 2500 years and falls this year on Saturday, April 4th. It is a time for Han Chinese to honor their ancestors, usually by visiting, cleaning, and bringing offerings to the tombs of the departed. In lieu of this, I am posting rubbings of the tombstones of my paternal grandparents, accompanied by their English translations.
Looking for something to draw during the current stay-at-home situation, an old manual SLR caught my eye. Here is a sequence of views showing the process by which I captured the Nikon FE2, a beautifully crafted machine. First, as shown above, I blocked out the main body of the camera. I placed the body to the right to allow for the later inclusion of the neckstrap.
Next, I developed the angled, faceted corners and the off-center position of the viewfinder and lens housing.
I then blocked out the viewfinder prism and lens housing along with a very important line, perpendicular to the body, that indicates the central axis of the lens. This would help guide the later development of the cylindrical forms of the lens.
The next step was to indicate the circular positions and sizes of the shutter speed dial, shutter release button, film winder, film rewind dial, and the eyelets for the neckstrap.
Next week, I will show the final stages of development.