The Principle of Contrast

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An important principle that can be applied to any drawing, regardless of the style or technique one employs in its execution, is the principle of contrast. Without contrast, we see none of the differences that contribute to identity and meaning—distinctions in line weight, tonal values, textures, details, and the use of white space.

Here are three examples. The first is of structures at Gas Works Park, where I exaggerated the range of tonal values—making the dark values darker than they really are and correspondingly, lightening the light areas—to emphasize the cylindrical nature of the tanks and pipes.

The second is of the Pantheon, where I used a simple contour line to define the building in the foreground, drew some details to establish the people-filled space of the square dominated by the obelisk, and applied tonal values to draw attention to the portico.

The third is of Red Square on the UW campus. Here, I deliberately dropped off detail on the facade of Suzzallo Library from right to left so that the darkened obelisk sculpture would contrast with and stand out in the left foreground. From there, the eye moves from the obelisk sculpture to Rainier Vista on the right between Suzzallo Library and Gerberding Hall.

Seattle Skyline

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We had a great turnout on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning for the Seattle UrbanSketchers meet-up at Jack Block Park in West Seattle. While a few sketchers drew close-up views of the marine and industrial facilities, many of us were seduced by and tackled the Seattle skyline. The expansive view stretched from downtown Seattle north to Queen Anne Hill, across Interbay to Magnolia, and finally across the Sound to the tip of West Seattle.

Because I was drawing in a 5″ x 8″ sketchbook, I decided to use three page spreads to cover the panorama and join them later in Photoshop. Here is the first spread showing the downtown area from the Space Needle on the left to CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field on the right, with the Harbor Island industries in the foreground.

This next view is of the entire panorama after the individual spreads were knitted together. It’s quite small here but the original is about 26 inches wide.

Forrest Wilson

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[Note: I’m reposting this from my Facebook page from January 2011.] As I was going through my old files last year, I rediscovered this portrait of Forrest Wilson that I did for his 70th birthday. I owe Forrest more than I can ever repay for what he has done for me and my family. As Director of the School of Architecture at Ohio University, he offered me my first teaching position and was also responsible for my entry into the publishing business when he showed my drawing course notes to Van Nostrand Reinhold, his publisher in New York. The notes were subsequently published as Architectural Graphics in 1975. Forrest is warm and generous—an artist, sculptor, writer, and builder who has written and illustrated many delightful and insightful books, such as What It Feels Like to be a Building; The Joy of Building; Structure: The Essence of Architecture; A History of Architecture on the Disparative Method: With Apologies to Sir Banister Fletcher (all eighteen editions). I titled the portrait: You Are What You Draw. If you look closely at the drawing, it incorporates the animal and human figures that Forrest used to illustrate his books.

Gaira Café

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During the recent conference in Bogotá, we went to the Gaira Café Cumbia House owned by Grammy Award winning Colombian singer, composer, and actor Carlos Vives and his brother Guillermo. Offering typical Colombian food, drink by the bottle, and live music, the place was packed on a Thursday night with people dining, drinking, and dancing in the aisles.

This is a view from our balcony overlooking the stage where the house band played traditional Vallenato and Cumbia music perhaps interpreted in a modern way.

Local color, local music, local dance. Check out <http://wn.com/gaira_cafe_cumbia_house>.

Bogotá, Colombia II

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My wife and I had a wonderful time visiting the dynamic city of Bogotá; meeting conference contributors from Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Canada; and enjoying the warm hospitality of the faculty and students of the Universidad Piloto de Colombia.

While touring the city and the surrounding countryside with the group in a bus, it was difficult to stop for any length of time to draw but I did manage to sketch a few scenes. This first view shows what is possible even if you only have a few minutes to draw. While the bus dropped us off on one corner of the central square in Zipaquirá and drove around to pick us up in the opposite corner, I managed to quickly sketch this view of the cathedral, noting the way the slope of the square was integrated by mounding the brick pavement around the palm trees.

After a tour of the Catedral de Sal and a quick run through Zipaquirá, we drove to the historic Hacienda San Cayetano for a BBQ lunch. This is the courtyard of the hacienda, where a local Colombian noted that we unfortunately transport forms and traditions that are not compatible with the local climate. In this case, the water feature of the courtyard that worked in warmer, dryer climates wasn’t quite as effective in the humid conditions of the high plateau on which Bogotá is located.

A few days is never enough time to fully understand the culture of a place and this is even more true when visiting a country as diverse as Colombia but I hope to return again in the future.

Bogotá, Colombia

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Leaving Monday for Bogotá, where I will be attending the International Seminar of Architecture hosted by the Universidad Piloto de Colombia and leading a couple of workshops on representation. I’m excited about experiencing Bogotá, working with the students, and doing some sketching myself.

In the meantime, here are a couple of sketches I did the last time I was in Colombia, in 2010, attending a conference on methods for teaching beginning design students held at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in the beautiful hilltown of Manizales. The first is of Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción, which fronts on Parque Caldas, with the statue of Francisco José de Caldas in the foreground. Caldas was a naturalist and geographer who was executed by the Spanish when Colombia (New Granada) was struggling for independence.

The second sketch is a fragment of a 50-ton bronze sculpture situated above Manizales in the neighborhood of Chipre. The monument pays homage to those who settled the region and founded Manizales. I tried to capture the struggle of the settlers, captured so eloquently by Luis Guillermo Arias, with a simple line drawing.

1950 Chevy Sport Coupe

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We had a tremendous turnout yesterday when the Seattle Urban Sketchers group met in the Georgetown neighborhood for the monthly meet up. Here’s everyone gathering to share their work in the rear room of Jules Maes Saloon, which has been around since 1888!

When I took out and uncapped my usually trusty Lamy fountain pen, I found it had a very bad leak but fortunately, I had a Copic Multiliner as a backup. The 0.7 mm point was a little thick for my taste and the change of instrument really affected my drawing.

While walking the streets of Georgetown, I happened upon this beautiful ’50 Chevy Sport Coupe. It had an elegance of proportion and flow of line that was both captivating and difficult to capture. My first attempt began as a contour drawing and I found it difficult to work from where I started, at the rear window, to the other parts of the body and to maintain control of where the drawing was leading.

In my second attempt, I decided to use a more tentative, swirling line to first rough out and then refine the overall form and proportions of the cab and the hump of the trunk that rose from the aerodynamic body. With this method, I could make subtle adjustments to the overall form as the drawing progressed.

Neither of the two sketches manages to capture the style and grace of this breakthrough in Chevrolet’s body designs but drawing in this manner really made me notice details and subtle relationships that would normally have gone unseen.

Pilgrimage Stamps

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In my Japan sketchbooks, my favorite page contains neither personal notes nor drawings but rather a pilgrimage “stamp” from Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddhist temple and UNESCO World Heritage site in Kyoto. It was and still is customary for pilgrims in Japan to collect these stamps in a book from each Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine visited. While some temples may only give stamps, at others a temple priest will hand-draw the temple’s “signature” in the pilgrim’s book for a small fee, as was done here. Beautiful calligraphy, artfully composed.

The If Project

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Detective Kim Bogucki of the Seattle Police Department initiated the If Project by posing the simple question: What if…?, and Renata Abramson, an inmate at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, promoted it among her fellow offenders. See <http://www.theifproject.com/why-if/> for the powerful and moving stories that resulted. (Note the following from the website: “…the women participating do not intend to excuse or dismiss responsibility for any of the crimes committed. Rather, they intend to take full responsibility and choose to look deeply into their past to learn what led them to this place.”)

When Jackie Helfgott, professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Seattle University, told Kim about the Seattle Urban Sketchers group, Kim suggested that we offer a drawing workshop at the monthly session of the If Project to offer another way for the women at WCCW to express themselves. And so Tuesday evening, eight Seattle Urban Sketchers visited WCCW for a few hours.

We didn’t know what to expect as we checked in and walked through the series of secured gates and doors. Upon meeting the group of more than 40 women, Gabi Campanario first asked what their expectations were. Some had drawing experience; many did not. “I can’t draw” was a common refrain, to which Gabi replied: As long as you can hold a pen or pencil and make a mark on paper, you can draw. So one goal of the workshop was to instill confidence and make drawing an enjoyable and reflective activity.

Gabi gave them several warm-up exercises, which then led to more varied choices of media and subject matter. While some women continued drawing from observation, others veered off to drawing from the imagination. It didn’t matter since drawing is essentially a form of visual expression, no matter what media we use or to what end we draw. The women were engaged, friendly, and perceptive, and many shared their aspirations. To paraphrase what one woman said after the workshop: Drawing took me away from where I am for a few hours.

Here is a quick sketch of one group drawing and a photo with Tre, who had asked me to sketch her portrait. I hope it was as gratifying for the women who attended the workshop as it was for us to be there for a few hours. On the drive back to Seattle, it was difficult to process my thoughts but what struck me the most was that we could return home afterwards and the women could not.

Ruby and Scarlett

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My brother and nephew from Austin and my sister from Honolulu were in town for a family reunion and to help celebrate my wife’s birthday. Since eating at a Chinese restaurant is a time-honored event when we get together to “talk story,” the family gathered to share a meal at Kau Kau Chinese restaurant in the ID district, which I think has the best char siu (barbequed pork) in Seattle, so juicy, tender, and sweet.

During the dinner, my grandnieces, Ruby and Scarlett, drew on pieces of paper as kids often do when given the opportunity. Here are two drawings on postcards I had given them; you might recognize me in the drawing to the left! These drawings are so delightful—intuitive, honest, and uninhibited. I am not sure why but we often lose these qualities in our drawings as we grow older and we have to work really hard to recapture and retain that innocence.