Hand & CAD - The Wireframe Years - 5

The 3D capability available in the early ‘90s inspired a lot of experimentation among architects and artists. I dreamed up this fantasy to entertain myself while learning AutoCAD commands. I printed the four views double sided to save paper and because I considered them throw aways. Surprisingly, I found them yesterday tucked into a binder for a “real” (paying) job, and present them here.

First, a plain vanilla view similar to what I produced by hand. No hiding of lines, and black Prismacolor pencil to establish some reality.

Second, a “worms-eye” view. You can’t see the 3 point perspective in such a non-rectalinear building, but it is there. Again, pencil shade and shadow on the print.

OK… that last wasn’t real worm’s-eye. THIS is a worm’s-eye!

And finally, an aerial with considerable overlap in the building’s faces. The pencil shading isn’t enough to clarify the volumes.

Architectural Faces

I try to make a birthday card for my kids every year. This one from several years ago takes an old drawing of an arched double window, and makes it into a weird face. People have been making buildings that resemble human and animal body parts for a long time, as well as pretending that buildings can talk and act like humans. But that is a blog for another time. Here, presented for your viewing pleasure, are a collection of building faces (or facades), and the faces they really want to be.

Insect faces are so varied and geometrical that it is hard not to make comparisons. I imagine that the movement toward non-rectilinear modern design will show more and more connection with insect ‘design’.

If I could have found a picture of someone in a helmet sticking out their tongue, it would have been perfect. As it is, Bismarck will have to do.

Droopy mustaches seem to be everywhere…

Snaggle-toothed churches are as rare as a redneck with all his teeth.

There are towers that grin at you (insincerely)…

And, rather startled facades.

This set of windows seems to be appalled at something. Perhaps he has lost his parents, and he is “home alone”.

This mosque has more in common with the Bashi Bazouk than their shared religion.

I like to think of this paring as the Facebook façade.

There is a certain exuberance in both the lady and the “Lodging”.

So, what does the image from the birthday card suggest to you?

13

Coffee Break Art

I have been busy cleaning out some cabinets, and happened upon a small wooden salad bowl.  Since it was not part of a set, and pretty much useless to me, I threw it into the trash.  A minute later I fished it out and took it downstairs where I had my painting palette still dirty with old oil paint.  I painted a face on the bottom of the wooden bowl, then thinking it needed something else, I took a pair of my old wirerimmed glasses, sniped the temples short, popped the lenses, and attached them to the face.

Voila!  My friend Woody.
 

Of course this is nothing new.  Every human does it in one way or another.  My father was an engineer, and he would cobble together electronic gadgets all the time.
Me, I twist up copper tubing, hang it on the wall, and call it ART.
This one?  Obviously a self portrait.

And then you have all the old equipment that is now obsolescent.  Below, the innards of an old video tape player ala Louise Nevelson.

But the truth is, I'm a 2D guy.  So when I saw my old Paasche 'V' laying there I had to spray it to see what it would look like.  Looks like a ghost to me; or a late career Turner painting.

And then you have the pure accident.  Long ago, rushing out to vacation I left a brush in a puddle of paint.  When I came back the dried paint had left a fossil-like impression.  The brush was a write-off, but I kept the fossil ever since.

And just to prove that I keep good company, here is a palette landscape done by Pissarro in 1878.  Good job Camille, you made it onto Wikimedia Commons!

Let's hope we're all so lucky.

Self Portraitstan

My server is on the blink, blocking access to something I was working on.  So I thought I’d dump some desktop images into the blog for fun.  I have occasionally tried drawing or painting portraits, but being shy, I have usually based any work on photographs.  This allows me to work on my own schedule, and be as relaxed and boring as I want.  Self portraits are perfect since the subject is just as shy and boring as I am, eliminating any embarrassment to all concerned.  Also the subject is docile and follows instructions perfectly (and never needs a break until I do).  Smells like teen… whatever.

Normally I would drone on about technique, color and composition, not to mention the need to draw, draw, draw.  But this is for fun, so a line or two will do.

Ink, Xerox & watercolor.  My hair was never that red.

… and this is your self portrait on drugs.  So sad.

First attempt at a real oil portrait.  Thought it was genius at the time, now not so much.

Oil from a photo…  blood from a stone.

No, I didn’t over do it in the tanning solon; it’s just the lighting.  Oh, well…

First chance to try out my Wacom tablet.

Watercolor from a photo.  Overworked as usual.

Isn’t that one of the henchmen in a Bond flick?

The tour guide from hell.

Pensive?  Meditating?  Or, dozing off?

Another Wacom job.  Not bad… for an architect.

That is sunburn on the nose, not a drinking problem.

A fascination with metal and glass; the hobgoblin of all architects.

The Dutch shipwright… or some such fantasy.

This makes me think 19^th century.  Maybe Civil War pencil pusher.

Battle of the bulge was the afterthought on this one.

A failed attempt at edge lighting.

All palette knife.  Silly technique if you ask me.

A recent pencil sketch for an upcoming foray into the wild world of…

SELF PORTRAITSTAAAANNNNNN

Kismet and Computers

Here is a shot of my watercolor palette.  It looked interesting; an accidental abstract painting, if you will.

Here is a photo from a few years ago, which I took without realizing the curious shadow shape.  An accidental confluence of tree, fence, light and me.

My kid brother (at our age that will give him a chuckle) lives out by a river, with plenty of undeveloped land.  I was tramping around his woods last winter and shot this old truss bridge.  I painted this on a computer tablet, using that photo, which, with its contrast of green, rust and winter grays, was irresistible.  A bit of luck that I hardly noticed when I was photographing it.

Finally, here is a pastel sketch that just fell together: a bit of kismet...
Kismet comes from the Urdu word for fate, destiny or luck.  It is the sea we swim in whether we like it or not.  No matter how much we try to control our future, and guarantee our happiness, things happen.  In its most benevolent form it is the good catastrophe, "eucatastrophe" being Tolkien's word, that finds us alive after the deadly storm or fire.

The images above are mini forms of kismet.  Chance encounters with beauty.  I wasn't looking for or working toward a specific idea of beauty, but it surprised me as I was just living.  In ink stains, photographs, or sketches, kismet can easily find you, but computers seem to be another thing.

Computers seem to be the epitome of cold logic, and the last place you might look for a chance encounter with kismet.  In computer rendering the shape, form, color and material are unambiguous and as close to simple reality as you can get, as in rendered chair below.

However, if you give the computer a chance, interesting things can happen.  The building design below was in an unfinished state when the rendering was run as a test.  The effect was such a curious mix of reality and plastic model, that I have kept it as a favorite ever since.

Another model (below) started as a very simple part of an otherwise excruciatingly complex design.  It was actually rather boring, until a lighting test caught the material and window wedges just right, producing enchantment.

Sometimes the model is just waiting for the right angle and light to seduce you.  A simple spiral stairs can be interesting architecturally while leaving a visual "blah".  Sometimes the staircase can come together as a complex design.  And, then there are times when the design  and the three dimensional reality can be overwhelmed by the abstract dance that makes it art.

And that is why I have optimism for a future with computers; it won't be what we want or expect, but it will include things to delight and beautify.

As Sherlock Holmes said in The Adventure of the Naval Treaty...
"Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."