Nature | Old Masters Drawing | David Beach

Nature studies

Designing nature - applying the research to contemporary subjects

Step-by-step constructing the Sea Turtle following Baroque aesthetics and drawing mechanics.

The First Pass

The Baroque artist typically drew on a lighter paper and drew the image darker and then placed their highlights. In this exercise the materials and process are reversed.

The turtle was shaped in its simplest form with the lightest blue guide, section and center lines which are difficult to see - look for the thinest lines, the thicker white and blue lines are the second pass over the initial blue lines . The objective was to visually balance the constructions as separate individual symmetrical forms related by graceful flowing lines and overlapping borders. One is not looking to duplicate the reference drawings or photos but to set each form in space independent of the adjacent form while thinking in terms of depth and direction. If the turtles morphology was not even and symmetrical eg., the shells repeated patterns, it was drawn to look as such. The head above was constructed first in blue chalk as a box in freehand perspective. The back flippers were constructed freely as solid objects with length, width and height in white chalk.

The Second Pass - Constructing the lights

In this step one is concerned with the shaping of each line and its density and not the value of the model or reference. The line will effectively appear darker or lighter. While thinking in terms as to the position of the line to the light source, one now draws lines in white chalk topping the form or perpendicular to the light - or simply draw what looks correct. Following the line of the form (do not veer off the form and chase the light patterns) descending from the light the density or application of chalk is less. One does not pick up the chalk completely until feathering off of at the end of the form line. The lines are deliberate and controled. If a line does not look correct simply brush it back with finger, do not erase. Once the lightest lights have been drawn and visually balanced as the primary, secondary and tertiary effects on the drawing, the artist now looks at the reference/model with a hard squint to assess the major forms trying not to copy the local value. The reference is pictured in the mind as white or off white. During the drawing process the eye considers the drawing most of the time not the model. The model is only a reference. The drawing develops by assessing one line at a time and one has to feel free to experiment to see what contributes to the definition of the form. One simply bushes the line into the paper with one's finger if it does not look correct. The hatching that has been introduced above is to notate the plane changes from the lightest inflection points of the shell's panels.

The Rococo Blue sketch

IWhile the Renaissance Masters drew each form with incremental depth and simplistic beauty, the Masters of the Baroque and Rococo designed each and every individual line. Next in the design process, scales will be added in the shadows to the Rococo Blue sketch and finally the accents added (below).

Below is the initial color average for a sketch of the Electric Blue applying Renaissance principles of design. The design of the fish was built on overlapping ovals, front to back and side to side. The oval of the eye was repeated to construct the snout length wise and in cross sections. The boundaries of the head are arching ovals. The fish will continue to be broken down with the patterns found on its body; ovals and diamond shapes. The blue chalk represents the average of the large forms. The lights will be built up, the shadows and dark lights added and the patterns reinforced and interwoven. Normally the contour would be drawn first, but because of the darker background the contour will be added after the lights are established.

Average lights and constructions

Mirror image

Taking the bait

Blue chalk on taupe paper

16 x 9 inches

Light-lights added

High-lights added

The Effect rebalanced

No value considerations were made while drawing the lights in this sequence. Only the form's alignment to the light source, constructions and the forms' surface contours were considered. The distinctions of high-light, light-light and so on are only descriptions and are not functional to the mechanics of drawing in this approach. The process does not concern whether a form is darker or lighter but rather how it turns or overlaps with adjacent forms. It is a sculptural process not a tonal process.

Below the design has begun using the contour to shape the forms that make up the Cichlid: bilaterally symmetrical, simplified and aligning with the large plane breaks of the incidental light. Boundaries of forms are treated as contours.