Week 3: Squinting at squares

Squinting and pointing

Did you ever see artists hold a brush or pencil at arms length while squinting with one eye and pointing said arm in the direction of a person or object. It has something to do with measuring stuff everyone knows that, right. Ever wonder how it works, ever think it was made up? No, oh oh ok. Anyway that's what we learnt about in week 3 and was the focus of the nights exercise.

Squaring up

Sam had prepared a piece of paper with a perfect 7cm x 7cm square on it. Our mission, that we choose to accept was to draw an identical square free hand. The two squares had to have exactly the same space between them as the width of the squares. And no we didn't have a ruler.

This is were the pointing and squinting comes in, we had to step back from the page and start measuring using our pencils to calculate the size and spacing. Our objective was to achieve "Absolute exactness of size" and "Accuracy and purity of line" Again we entered into our Zen states and began the process.

Giotto and the pope

Way is this purity and accuracy so important, well in the 14th century the artist Giotto was approached by an aid to then pope to 'pitch' for business. Other artists would send samples of their best work, Giotto instead took a piece of paper laid it on the ground and poured a circle of chalk on it. He then presented it to the aid. The aid took this as an insult but delivered the sample to the pope, explaining what happened and expecting Giotto to be ex-communicated. The pope looked at the circle and awarded Giotto the commission. Why, well the circle was a perfect circle, and pope recognised the skill. If you can draw a perfect circle free-hand, their is little you can't do with a pencil or brush, so accuracy and purity of line was the theme of the evening. And accuracy comes from understanding how to measure something with your eye.

 

Doodle of the week

We were set some homework, do more squares and dividing up lines by sight, did the squares but will need to cram the rest. Anyway all the this talk of the classics inspired me to try something different to superheros. I stumbled across this study by Herbert Drapper and decided to gave it a go. Apart from getting the composition right I took the time to focus on the line and accuracy and that squinty eye thing, it certainly helped but you can be the judge.

My version

Drappers