Scenes from June 1st
Plein air program |
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| The day's plein air session was held on the vast and beautiful grounds of Ross Bay Cemetery. Many famous folks rest here including Sir James Douglas, lots of premiers, coal baron Robert Dunsmuir of Craigdarroch Castle fame, Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, our own Emily Carr, Billy Barker (he who shouted "GOLD!!" at Barkerville), and Nellie Cashman, the “Miners’ Angel” who was featured on a U.S. postage stamp. |
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 | | Avis Rasmussen captures the spirit of a nearby angel. |
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Scenes from June 8th
Plein air program |
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| This week was spent at Government House, where the gardens were at their best! |
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Scenes from June 15th
Plein air program |
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| The VSC gang met at Beaver Lake this week for a lovely morning of sketching. Neighbouring Elk Lake, Beaver Lake is known for its good-sized fresh water lake and lovely walking trails. Both horse and dog-friendly, Beaver Lake is known for its equestrian trails and its retriever training in the nearby ponds! |
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Scenes from June 22nd
VSC Luncheon gathering |
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| The club had a welcome-back session to Windsor Park Pavilion. The first half of our time here was spent sketching and painting in the rose garden, and the second half spent gathered together over lunch and our Government House lottery! |
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| VSC members had planned to meet at Esquimalt's beautiful Saxe Point Park, but record high temperatures prompted a postponement of this week's plein air. |
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History Corner
by John Lover |
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VSC member Nirmala Greenwell recently brought to our attention a book entitled “From Cordwood to Campus.” The author was Ursula Jupp, born in the Scilly Isles and brought here with her parents in the early 1900s. She was to become a well-known writer/historian, who made a big contribution to preserving Saanich history.
This volume offers a fascinating account of the history of Gordon Head. It chronicles the development of the area from its days as a primeval forest, through the time when its fertile soil was cultivated to yield phenomenal flower and strawberry growing, to the era of World War II with the construction of an Army Camp and the subsequent sale of this site to establish the nucleus of the present University of Victoria.
Nirmala noticed the book was illustrated by an artist named Mary Allard, and wondered if Mary had any association with our club. Indeed, she had, and Mary is still remembered by a few of our long-time members. A notable reminiscence comes from Kathleen Metcalfe, who, as a new member having inherited the role of treasurer, was firmly told by a stern Mary that she was “too young for the job.”
Mary was born in Scotland in 1907 and was a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan. Remembered as an influential figure in our club and as a great organizer and scribe, she became interested in our history and the records show that she produced some of the earliest pamphlets on the subject. Her obituary shows her to have been a lady of wide cultural interests and activities.
Apart from her work as a book illustrator, Mary became recognized as a very able and talented watercolour artist, n oted for her paintings of sea and landscapes, and scenes featuring lonely indigenous totems. The attached illustration features orcas in the Strait of Juan da Fuca. It is dominated primarily by white and blue with the orcas standing out through the stark black and white of their bodies. It also suggests that from her residence in Rithet Street, close to the waterfront in James Bay, she was able to enjoy the views across the Strait to the Olympic Mountains.
Mary attended an annual paint-out at Cowichan as recently as 1984, finally resigning from the Club in 1990. She passed away in Victoria in 1995, at the age of 88 years. |
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Perspective a.k.a. illusionismSeveral recent VSC sessions have focused on perspective drawing and learning. Many terms have been introduced to describe different kinds of perspective, aerial, frontal, angular, curvilinear, multi-point, and even the teasing reverse. Following is a little dip into the vast informative and sometimes entertaining world of perspective rendering in art.
Perspective drawing is really a disciplined set of techniques to achieve an illusion, an effort to produce on a flat surface a realistic representation of a three-dimensional image as seen by the eye. Conventions have been developed intended to satisfy the observer as to their intent. The history of perspective is long and varies widely according to the cultures and philosophies of many societies. The intent may be practical, such as to produce drawings to guide three-dimensional craftmanship as with architectural renderings, or it may be whimsical to confuse, amaze, or amuse.
Turner
While travelling in England two years ago, I visited an exhibition in the Worcester Art Museum entitled “The Young Turner: Ambitions in Architecture and the Art of Perspective.” The exhibition was organised by the  Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, and consisted of rarely exhibited selections from Turner’s first sketchbook.
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) was an English artist, famed for his expressive, turbulent, marine landscapes. Less known is that as a young man he trained as an architectural and topographical draughtsman, and many of his early sketches were architectural studies or exercises in perspective. He had a successful career producing commissioned architectural drawings many of which can be viewed in historical sources. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the Royal Aca demy of Arts in 1807, where he lectured until 1828. Here are a few illustrations from the Turner exhibit.
The first two are exercises. Number 36 shows a variety of interesting planes The third is an architectural perspective drawing for the watercolour of the building in the fourth illustration. Note the many lines drawn in to guide the perspective rendering, lines we typically refer to as our vanishing lines.
A very brief historical survey of perspective drawing
One presumes that artists have always wanted to be satisfied in their own creativity and that would include making sure that what they were drawing represented as identifiably as possible the subject they were drawing both to themselves and their viewers. Sculptors and carvers clearly had different challenges in their work but suggesting relative depth and proportion in one-dimension was not amongst them.
An early attempt to render perspective has been identified in early Egypt where hierarchical, vertical or thematic perspective was employed; figures are shown above or below each other, or overlapping to show their relative importance. More important figures were rendered larger and there was no attempt at foreshortening.
By the fifth century BCE in Greece systematic attempts to evolve a system of perspective have been detected, as part of a developing interest in illusionism used for theatrical scenery or domestic decoration. Skenographia used flat panels angled to give an impression of depth.
By the Middle Ages artists were employing, if not precise vanishing points, implied convergence, as they recognized that smaller objects looked more distant than nearer ones. Renaissance artist, Filippo Brunelleschi, experimented with geometrical perspective, demonstrating his method using peep holes and mirrors to demonstrate to viewers that the buildings he had painted appeared to have a vanishing point centred from the perspective of the viewer.
Later artist Leon Battista Alberti used planar projections to show how distance in painting appears to the eye. His theory was based on how the rays of light, passing from the viewer's eye to the landscape, wo uld strike the picture plane. He was then able to calculate the apparent height of a distant object using Euclidian theory involving two similar triangles.
Escher’s very skilled use of perspective in this drawing invites the viewer to struggle to make sense of what he or she is seeing. The eye obeys the presumed vanishing lines but soon the mind becomes puzzled as the conventions have been skewed to amuse, confuse, and amaze. The joke is appreciated and the viewer soon looks for another image in the genre of optical illusion.
Mark Anthony, contemporary artist, has rendered a complex architectural drawing. In a drawing like this the vanishing point lines comprise a significant part of the design as well as impress us with the skill of draughting. One doubts that this staircase set will ever be built but the picture pleases as an exercise in control and line management. The eye runs around and is invited off in various directions.
As the years passed artists further refined the practices and conventions of how to create convincing three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. In the current day computer graphics probably dominate the production of perspective in flat surface art. Designers of buildings and interior desi gn come to mind but then I found the picture below that seems to hearken to an earlier period. This fanciful but inviting room (see right) is by Jake Cheung of Computer Games Art.
In the genre of optical illusion here is an example of reverse perspective.
Perspective can clearly both be a very serious undertaking but also has a wonderfully light-hearted side when the artist draws with a sense of humour along with great skill. (left: the author's perspective study!) -- researched and written by Janice Graham |
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Sooke Art ShowThe Sooke Art Show 2021 online show takes place from July 23 - August 2 at sookefinearts.com. They have developed a new and more robust website to improve the quality of the event, and will be open for submissions starting March 17 - May 25. Check out their website for more detail. |
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Beach Acres, Parksville, is the venue for 2021, September 7-14, 2021. There are lots of painting sites in and around Parksville and Qualicum Beach.
For more information, please go to the website at www.beachacresresort.com. If you are interested in joining us, please make your booking ASAP.
Guest Services and Sales, call 1-800-663-7309 |
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