Reflections In Watercolor

Mulan wonders when her reflection will show, in the water. But how do we display that reflection the Disney artists showed us. I read up in the reflection chapter of my book, Understanding Perspective by Stephanie Bower to understand the reflection behind bodies of water. To do this I looked up many lakes surrounding homes and neighborhoods. The specific painting I followed along with from the book shows a village street in Rua Dr. Pereira, Paraly, Brazil by Mathew Brehm.

Bower says that they're two properties in the combinations of reflection; "Smooth vs. rippled water... Be sure to look carefully, as the object and its reflection are not identical" (Bower 90). In my reference drawing Mathew Brehm follows a village street with no ripples. The water is simply standing. This makes sketching a bit easier as the reflection should now be an identical mirrored copy of  above the reflection or water. The valley above the street is focused in the middle to let the readers eyes follow down towards the water, so are the houses. In each painting an artists thinks carefully about every angle, because an angle can be crucial. Perspective is what draws the reader in, the artist shows what they want the reader to see by using perspective to train the eyes to follow an object down to their focus.

Bower explains reflections as a mirrored image that starts at a piece of lined reflection (Bower 91). Bower shows this in diagrams, like folded paper. Wherever the line of reflection is at is where you paper or house in this case will be folded. I took note of this advice when i got past the line of reflection and started drawing my mirrored homes. I lifted the object below the reflection line and flipped the house upside down. I found this part was easiest when i just turned the paper upside down. I did sketches before I attempted to draw the whole thing. This helped to watch out for mistakes I made while sketching prior in my rough drafts.



Personally I love the look of reflection on a body of water. So what is your favorite tactic of perspective? What is your favorite thing to draw or doodle? I know I love to draw Instagram models, but for the blog assignment I wanted to challenge myself to try something new.

Still Life Sketches

                                                 Still Life Drawing By:Olivia Nguyen

If you look around the room you will find shapes, shapes everywhere. Drawing can be simple and easy when you start each sketch with shapes and then connect them. I decided to pick up my water color pen and my watercolor palette to start drawing again. Since this is my fourth entry I decided to change it up a bit and instead of drawing building I decided I would try still life. I picked some objects only and from the book to replicate or draw. I lost track of time and before I knew it I sketched about a dozen different objects!



In the book Understand Perspective by Stephanie Bower she says "Try sketching rounded lampshades in your home from different eye levels. What part of the ellipses do you see when your eye level is higher than the lampshade?" (Bower 83). I kept this in mind when I was sketching one of the objects, I sketched the teacup from different angles which gave me a good perspective and I learned a lot from the shapes from different angles.

Bower describes ellipses as circles in perspectives as flattened shapes, by understanding these circles making arches and vaulted ceilings are so much easier. We often rarely see true circles (Bower 82). I made many ellipses when I was drawing, I used them to sketch out my first drawings. Starting with a base was helpful to make more in depth drawings. The rough drawing make a good match with the watercolor.

These sketches took me about under an hour. I used a pental aquabrush, paper, and a bic pencil. What i really like about watercolor is the flexibility of colors that are optional for you. What is your favorite media of art? And why?

One Point Aerial Perspective

One Point Aerial Perspective by: Olivia Nguyen

Let me take you to the rooftop loggia of the Basilica San Marco in Venice, Italy. It is described by many as a simple space to sketch. All you do is start with a box and build you vanishing point and you have got the perfect basis for Venice, Italy. But there are many arches when looking upon the loggia. How do we achieve a realistic look of arches and beautiful doors? On site drawing is great because taking a picture can be done in two seconds, but a drawing you really take time to take in all the little details. Once your done and can look back upon it you can remember all the smells, weird sights, weather, noises, and maybe even the taste of the air that day. I don't recall a phone camera doing all that. With a camera you miss so many of those little details. As I am much better at drawing sketches of people rather than buildings helping me guide through my perspective drawing I will use the book Understand Perspective by Stephanie Bower. The great thing about this book many of the artists featured are right here from Seattle. 

Bower uses a term called foreshortening to achieve the flattening out affect something has as it gets closer to your vanishing point. Bower explains that the closer at eye level something is the flatter it should seem (Bower 34). When I did the first rough sketches I made sure the building, arches, and windows farther away had more dimension verse the ones that were closer to the vanishing point. This added to the sketches realism. 

During the detailing process of my sketch I got stuck on patterns and which way they went. How would I make sure I kept the realistic characteristics of the buildings when I drew them? In the book Bower explains the difference of horizontal shortening and vertical shortening "The angled lines of the molding on the side walls flatten to a horizontal line at your eye level. When sketching, look for architectural elements like course of stone or brick to flatten at the eye level too" (Bower 35). This helped a lot during my watercolor period of my drawing I made sure to add texture at angled lines and none to some others. This gave my artwork a nice flattening at my horizon line. My horizon line is at eye level. Before my sketch I sketched many lines, dots, and a persons head for eye level. All of them had meaning to ensure my keeping of perspective. If you look the sketch before water color you maybe able to see some of them. This kept my windows in order and everything else nice and neat. 

This perspective drawing took me about an hour to do. I am definitely making progress from my last drawing. I used a Pang watercolor set 8, Bic mechanical pencil, pen, notebook paper, and a pentel waterbrush. Don't forget to watch out for more posts from me with more artwork. I want to leave you with a question, what is your favorite building? Taj Mahal? Seattle Space Needle?

Understanding Perspective

Olivia Nguyen
Understanding Perspective by Stephanie Bower

Ever see those hipster artists in a Seattle coffee shop. Most likely these artists are doing something called drawing on location. It is a great way to save memories of where you have been.

A book called Understanding Perspective by Stephanie Bower features many artists from Seattle. The book teaches you skills and terms you need to make your own perspective drawing.


Bower says "A common error in eye-level sketches is to put the vanishing point a little too high, in effect raising your eye-level and 'floating'" (Bower 43). Your vanishing point is one of the most important parts of starting your sketch because it bases where everything will be in your drawing. So when I did my eye-level sketch (which is a perspective sketch set at eye-level) I made sure to set it not too high other wise my whole sketch would be off.

The follow along sketch I decided to do from the book is a elevation eye-level sketch. An elevation sketch can be described as a your line of sight perpendicular to the building face. Basically straight forwards from you (Bower 18). When I was drawing the sketch I kept in  mind the line of sight should be perpendicular to the building's face. If you look closely at the drawing you may be able to see my vanishing point line.

The building I drew took about 30-45 minutes to do. The landscaping in the drawing could use some work, but my building is pretty good. I used a Pang watercolor 8 set, Bic pencil, Notebook paper, Pentel waterbrush pen, and a pen.

Make sure you keep up with my posts to see my progress and more artwork to come.