Sunday, December 9, 2007

Playing With Scale


This is Exercise 15 in Keys to Drawing with Imagination. The exercise is called Playing with Scale. The idea is to combine 2 photographs, distorting the scale of some elements yet keeping the scene realistic. I drew from a photograph of a albatross in the December 2007 issue of National Geographic and a photo of a 18th century Nantucket, Massachusetts house I found in the book In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. The first mate of the whaling ship Essex lived in this house. A whale sank the Essex, a tragic event that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. In the Heart of the Sea is an outstanding historical account of the Essex. I combined the two photos because of the sea connection. I also see a literary link between the 2 photos: Moby Dick by Hermann Melville meets The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Black .01 Micron pen on 9" x 12" Strathmore 400 Series Sketch Pad paper.

3 comments:

Sue Smith said...

Great drawing. I will have to look on Amazon for that book. And I like your monthly goals idea...I really have to get myself more organized.

Faruffa said...

Great result, very evocative. I am very interested in technique you used and the book indicating.

Laurel Neustadter said...

Thanks, Sue and Faruffa. Faruffa, the book is Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity by Bert Dodson. The ISBN is 1581807570. As far as technique, I drew the picture in pencil first, using the photos as reference, and then added pen.