For this Assignment I picked up to draw one of my favourite places to walk is Place Massena in Nice.  I picked up this object because it was very  relevant to the topic of the exercise and very challenging – there was a perspective, there were  lot of small details. Actually, drawing it was very hard: my lines were not symmetrical, my perspective  on paper was far from perfect. Now I understand why students in Art Academies can spend half a year,  drawing just straight lines, symmetry and perspective –  this is really hard. I think even more: simple, but perfect,   pencil drawings of buildings do involve more technique than painting of bunch of flowers.  This assignment took me about a week, I did numerous trials with my lines, trying to replicate  on my drawing the symmetry and perspective like they are  on the photo above.  It was lot of starting  over and over again, lot of work with an eraser, I used a ruler – I must confess! This  picture above contains lot of details – the  lines – arcades, windows, shatters, sculptures  on the buildings, the floors.

Obviously I haven’t reach a perfection in terms of symmetry and elegance, I need to practice more.

My drawing is not an exact copy, because it was just impossible to me. My paper was A3 format. My drawings turned to be as an illustration for children’s book. This impression is also strengthened because I used an HB pencil and colour pencils. I am not particularly happy with this drawing because I miss lot of technique of drawing perspective and symmetry.  Below is my work:

Today I also  post my drawing of  a townscape – a city skyline in Boston.

I found this city scope as  a relevant one for this exercise because it meets the requirements: we must draw a perspective and it should be a townscape.

We are required to establish a  primary focus – Center point. I did my research about this topic and  found a great educational resources which is a  studentartguide.com  with an article “One point perspective drawing: the ultimate guide”;

Since drawing in one point perspective is usually appropriate when the subject is viewed by the viewer “front on” – such as when looking directly  at the face of the object. In my case with my photo I used, I could apply 2 points perspective, because I drew objects which were  not facing me directly and had a corner which was nearest to me – this was  a left corner.  In my case the Center point because of the angle taken when the photo was done, moved a bit to the left side.  But may be I am wrong – I have never been good in geometry.  Thus I think THE point – is the tallest building in the skyline, which is NOT right at the central vertical  line of the whole image, it is slightly moved from the Center to the left side.

The foreground on the photo and my drawing is a face of my friend, the middle ground is a river and a background is a city skyline. The foreground – the face – I draw lot of details such as hair, eyelashes and earphone.The middle section of my drawing is  the river – I put riffles on the water close to the face  and they do disappear as middle point converges with a background. The background contains many objects, but all of them are small and even on the photo  small details are not visible. I also tried to show the direction of light, which comes from upper right corner, doing lot of shading where appropriate:  a left side of the face, shades on the water from the buildings and there si a distinct  long shade on the trees and bushes from right to left – it it wide and thick on the right side diminishing towards left side. Also I shaded sides of the buildings. I did my drawing in 2HB pencil, black ink pen and blue ink. In general I am ok with the result, however, as you notice the face and the head of the person on my drawing is smaller than they are on the photo. That’s the result of my  doubts as a portrait maker and frankly speaking I was not sure that I will manage well with overall proportions on the drawing if I do such a big face. It seems very natural on the selfie, but seems quite daunting on the drwaing, so I deliberately made it smaller.  Also I must confess that  I do understand the concept of linear perspective  and I understand perfectly  why we need it when we draw, however I can’t say that I mastered it for 100% practically. I think my landscapes with sky and sea, and the light are not bad in sense of perspective, but the townscapes  with lot of vertical and horizontal lines are very hard for me to draw, so I will practise more and I will post my sketches soon. Below the photo is my work.