I promote integrating photography into the drawing process and know many other visualists that utilize photography in their drawing process. My good friend and talented architect Marc Applebaum, AIA has been creating beautiful soft pencil drawings of neighborhood homes and businesses for over 30 years. Each Fall he volunteers for the Park Hill Home Tour that features twelve historic residences and Marc produces a portrait of each historic home that is given to the owner.
Marc has recently been exploring a technique of drawing on handmade Fabriano paper with a conté crayon. He was inspired by the drawing technique Georges Seurat used in 1877-1881. A number of Seurat’s sketchbooks were exhibited in 2007 at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) with detailed descriptions of his drawing method explained on the exhibition’s website. The following images are some of Applebaum’s explorations in drawing on textured paper.
Park Hill Cafe. This neighborhood coffee shop drawing was based on a digital photograph printed 11”x17” and traced with a 2H wood pencil on single matte Mylar. Marc improved the composition by adding more people to the scene and framing the upper portion of the image with tree foliage.
Park Hill Cafe. Marc reduced his original line drawing with a standard office copier to both sharpen the pencil lines and lighten them. He chose a rough finish bond paper and added tonal variations and more linework using a 2B conté crayon stick.
Original Photograph. Marc took this photograph of an industrial port near Seattle. He printed the photograph on letter size paper and traced the “edges” on Mylar.
Mylar Line Drawing. The polymer material has a high degree of transparency making it is easy to trace over photographs. Marc used a 2H wood pencil and traced only the primary linework and edges - no tone. He then copied the image onto handmade Fabriano paper using a very light setting.
"Transformers". Using a 2B conté crayon, Marc added tonal variations to the print, revealing the beautiful watermarks and texture of the Fabriano paper. This drawing effect was a signature characteristic of the sketches by Georges Seurat using conté crayon on handmade Michallet paper.
“Winslow”. This drawing of a small town on Bainbridge Island was created with an identical process as the previous drawing. Marc traced a print of the photograph with pencil onto Mylar. He copied the line drawing onto Fabriano paper using a very light exposure setting and then added the different tones and hatching to the print with a 2B conté crayon. Notice the patterns revealed in the shaded tones due to the textured paper.
“Tecumesh”. This drawing of Peuget Sound’s Tecumesh Ferry was composed from a digital photograph that Marc took peering through the pine forest at the boat leaving the harbor. He used the dark tones from the foreground to contrast the light of the open water and ferry. The yellowish color of the background is the natural tone of the handmade Fabriano paper.
“Leonard Bernstein”. This marvelous drawing of Leonard Bernstein was created from a photograph using the same methodology as the previous drawings. Marc was careful to create even tones with the conté crayon and manage the extreme contrast between the darks and lights. Notice how the blacks of the background and his clothing are indistinguishable, adding to the sense that his head and hands are effortlessly floating in space!
Many thanks to Marc Applebaum, AIA for the use of his images!
Look for other interesting articles on my blog, visit my website www.drawingshortcuts.com and read my new book Drawing Shortcuts Second Edition. NEW! - The 2010 Blog Collection , a 116-page catalog of my best blog posts from 2010 is now available on Blurb! http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1963744
Take a bow Marc ala Seurat! There aren't architects with exploration in their drawing-minds.. these are stunning!
Posted by: Candy Barr | 03/30/2011 at 10:19 AM