Tag: drawing

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Value Structure – Separating Light from Dark

This video describes for you in detail how I structure my values within a Charcoal drawing. Value Structure in a drawing is a measurement between light values (high key) to dark values (low key). By modulating your those values one can create drama, textural effects and depth of space. The name of the drawing I’m demonstrating on is “Walk Bridge”. My charcoal drawing is for an art show at the San Diego Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park. The exhibit is from November 2021 to January 2022.

These are the materials I used:

Strathmore 400 Series Smooth Surface Paper

General’s PurePowder Charcoal

Winsor Newton (vine) Willow Charcoal Sticks

Chamois

Kneaded Rubber

I like to start out with my area of focus; in this case the walkway bridge. I begin removing the charcoal with the chamois. I work in this method in this as a way to not “fuss” with detail, much like using a large brush will do. From the bridge, I begin removing charcoal to create a circular composition. This is a classical approach where you can move the eye around the subject. The chamois creates a nice soft edge. Soft edges will produce the illusion of light wrapping around objects. These edges will create transitions (passages) from background to foreground.

I hope you enjoy this video. Feel free to contact me if you have any question.

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Bonsai Drawing Series – Perception

Instructional video on understanding Perception in Bonsai Drawing

Perception is a subject studied by Philosophers and Artist throughout the ages.  Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his book ‘Phenomenology of Perception’ writes how Perception is the background of experience.  Artist looks at Perception as a relationship between what we see and a clear understanding of that experience; in our case the viewing of a Bonsai Tree.  In this video I take on that subject of Perception and how it can help you understand ‘what you see’ and translate that to a drawing descriptively and clearly.

One way of understanding “Perception” is to explore the phenomenon on how we see an object and how we interpret it in space.  As a child we draw the world flat and symbolically, whereas when we mature, and experience the world 3-dimensionally, we begin to “describe” the world more in terms of space; this is reflected in how we approach drawing.  The drawings created by the child is therefore much different that of an adult.

This video illustrates that they’re learnable tools that can help us define a descriptive space such that overlapping items, removing ambiguity, detailing and value shifting in the motif can better illustrate the tree we are drawing in a mature way. 

I sincerely hope this video clarifies your understanding of Perception in drawing and furthers your interest in our goal to help accurately draw your Bonsai tree.  Most importantly further your enjoyment of the beautiful Art of Bonsai.

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Bonsai Drawing Series – Types of Drawing

Instructional video on methods for drawing your Bonsai

In this video I discuss the 3 types of Bonsai drawings; Symbolic, Imaged and Descriptive. The video uses a Femina Juniper Bonsai as our ‘model’ and discusses the method for drawing in these 3 particular types, as well as the Pros and Cons for these methods.

In drawing a Bonsai Tree (or anything for that matter) we use all three types of drawing in one way or another. This video, and subsequent videos, will show how to recognize your approach and ultimately give you a good understand on how to do your own drawings within your own aesthetics.

My method is to tilted towards the descriptive way of drawing for getting a better understanding of “seeing” and a better method for understanding and visually experiencing your tree. The goal is to increase your appreciation for the beautiful world of Bonsai and help you develop the tool of drawing to increase your experience of Bonsai.

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Video Blog – Developing a Etching Plate

This is a video blog that goes into detail how I approach an etching for my Japanese Garden Series. The video shows how I develop the plate by first etching into it the motif, then to develop the value structure through aqua-tinting.

This is Part 2 of a 2 Part video series (see https://www.reekersart.com/video-blog-prep-work-for-an-etching/)

Thank you so much for checking this out. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions and be sure to subscribe to my mailing list. If you a interested in purchasing a print please go to https://www.reekersart.com/product-category/prints/

Cheers

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Video Blog – Prep-Work for an Etching

This is a video blog that goes into detail how I approach an etching for my Japanese Garden Series. The video shows how I use photos that my wife or I took of our travels through Japan and how in my sketchbook (along with other sketches) I create a motif. I subsequently transfer that motif to bond paper in order to create a detail pen and ink drawing. The P&I drawing helps me define my line-work and textures that will be drawn on the plate. I then create an ink-wash painting to help me with an “aqua-tinting plan”. The video will describe the medium and tools that are used. From that, all is complete to create the etching motif.

This is Part 1 of a 2 Part video which will cover the actual development of the plate and how I used the prep-work to accomplish it.

Thank you so much for checking this out. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions and be sure to subscribe to my mailing list.

Cheers