Sydney Opera House View from the Botanical Gardens
Urban Pastel Landscape in Australia
Two years ago I took a trip of a life-time to visit my Australian niece. She took time off work to traipse around with me, but for week she worked in Sydney and I took a few days to draw the Sydney Opera House. While drawing this I had a funny plein air horror story. A tourist (in my art snobbery I am never a tourist as long as I painting) while I was artist in residence, a tourist came up behind me to see the progress. But not only did he/she (I never looked) come up so close to me, they were so close that their chin came over my shoulder next to my ear! He/she wanted to literally see my visual perspective. I can't believe I continued to draw without stopping. Truth is I was on a timer and every second counted before the light changed too much. After this for the rest of my pastel plein air I found spots where I could back up against a wall or tree. Good luck with trying to get behind me again, ha!
I am not an architecture expert, but I love it when it has visual themes that I can grasp. My two favorite public buildings are this and the USCD Library in La Jolla, California.
If you look close enough you can see my preliminary composing lines. I draw as fast as I can and use triangulation to line up the forms and proportions. I have a time-lapse demo of doing that inside a French Church. Instead of it feeling cold and calculating, every time a proportion or perspective fits, I feel an unbearable burst of pleasure -- nailed it, yay! That emotional check mark I find is common to great creatives, an emotional response of certainty -- what every caused that is the way to go.
Michael Newberry, Idyllwild, 10/22/2020