Photography & Drawing

 

Photography

  1. Frame your subject (get closer)
    1. Mediocre
    2. Better
  2. Make it active
    1. Mediocre
    2. Better
  3. Capture the emotion
  4. Light it up
    1. Mediocre
    2. Better
  5. Compose
    1. Mediocre
    2. Better
  6. Point of view
    1. Dupont Station

                                                               i.      Down

                                                             ii.      Up

    1. Vancouver Skyway

                                                               i.      East

                                                             ii.      West

    1. Downtown Pittsburgh

                                                               i.      Day

                                                             ii.      Night

  1. Issues
    1. Film vs. digital
    2. Photoshop

 

Drawing 

  1. Tom Bliese (Set Designer, MSU Theater)
    1. Artists turn off the name of the thing and click in line, color, texture, form
    2. Variety in means of expression

                                                               i.      Visual expression

1.      Work toward it visually as soon as possible (don’t talk it to death)

2.      Can’t talk about the visual world; have to show it

3.      Start with a thumbnail sketch

4.      Presentation—turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse (definition, scale)

                                                             ii.      The more languages you can speak, the better the chance you’ll use the most appropriate one.

                                                            iii.      Don’t make it look too precious:  design it so it looks like it’s easy to modify

                                                           iv.      Don’t design the “set” first—first decide what the space is like, then what the scale will be (for theater, scale to the actor), then design the environment to be built.

                                                             v.      Combine 2 & 3 dimensions by mounting drawings on core-board and arranging depth (sort of bas-relief).

    1. Drawing is an exercise to see, rather than to look.

                                                               i.      “Draw a person” gives less satisfactory results than “Draw me”

                                                             ii.      Eye-hand coordination—proportions, rather than actual measure (holding the thumb or a pencil or a ruler out at arm’s length)

                                                            iii.      An amateur may have talent, but a professional knows how to control it.

    1. Evaluating a visual design

                                                               i.      Line—are proportions correct (do the lines relate properly)?

                                                             ii.      Color—tone, shade, etc.

                                                            iii.      Form—mass & shape

                                                           iv.      Texture—real (eg, brick) or visual (eg, marble)

  1. Hans Schwarz, Drawing Buildings and Cityscapes, NY:  Taplinger, 1979
    1. Vanishing Point

                                                               i.      Single

                                                             ii.      Double

                                                            iii.      Multiple

    1. Single Building

                                                               i.      Blocking

                                                             ii.      Details

                                                            iii.      Tones

                                                           iv.      Finish

    1. Cityscape

                                                               i.      Blocking

                                                             ii.      Details

                                                            iii.      Tones

                                                           iv.      Finish

    1. Street Furniture 

                                                               i.      Number 1

                                                             ii.      Number 2

  1. Style
    1. Nathan Winters, Architecture Is Elementary, Salt Lake City, UT:  Peregrine Smith Books, 1986. 

                                                               i.      Sydney Opera House

                                                             ii.      Louis Sullivan—Merchants’ National Bank

    1. Grady Clay, Close-Up, NY:  Praeger, 1973.

                                                               i.      Industrial Park

                                                             ii.      Urban Heritage

                                                            iii.      Word Map

    1. Gordon Cullen, The Concise Townscape, NY:  VanNostrand Reinhold Co., 1978.

                                                               i.      Municipal square

                                                             ii.      Pedestrian way

    1. Paul Spreiregen, Urban Design:  The Architecture of Towns and Cities, NY:  McGraw-Hill, 1965.

                                                               i.      Paths

                                                             ii.      Edges

  1. Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Los Angeles:  Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1989.
    1. Upside-down drawing—right-left shift
    2. Contour drawing—eye-hand coordination
    3. Transparency drawing—perspective