Madeline Island School of the Arts - Season 2

This July, as I posted before, the Madeline Island School of the Arts held another course led by a great group of dedicated instructors, including yours truly. 

Once again, it was an incredible week—full of joy and camaraderie, but also challenges and plenty of learning, and of course the awesome food and the beautiful scenery of both the campus and the island.

My workshop was this: "Visual Reading - Using your Perception to Build Scenes" (see here a description)

The results were great, I must say. For those who already had some experience with perspective, it was a good chance to sharpen their skills or simply practice using the personal approach I’ve developed over more than 15 years of teaching. And for complete beginners, it was the perfect chance to jump in, learn, and start experimenting right away. That’s because we were completely immersed in a calm, inspiring setting—starting in the classroom and then taking the knowledge straight outside, just a few steps from the door.

I believe I’ve developed a good balance between the theoretical and practical sides of perspective, especially since I work on a smooth transition from the mechanical system to the visual/perceptive system, making it easier for the students to understand and depict three-dimensional space.

For explaining the fundamentals, I brought along my beautiful little box of colors, which was a huge help - for both indoors and outdoors activities! 

Here are two sketches I made in preparation for the classes. They show the development of my thinking and were used to illustrate, among other things:

1. Framing: Helps make things smaller so they fit onto the page;
2. First lines: Eye level, nearest edge—the first lines establish the dimensions of the subject, but can be adjusted until you find the right fit;
3. Establishing the perspective structure: Add the vanishing points onto the page (I specifically asked them to do this as an exercise);
4. Measuring distances horizontally first, and then vertically: Use the pencil to gauge proportions;
5. Check dimensions again: Adjust the frame if necessary and possible;
6. Start figuring out sloping lines;
7. As your sketch takes shape, mistakes will pop up—after all, drawing is all about making continuous adjustments until, and this is very important, you fully commit to the new reality you’ve just created and move forward;
8. The structure is in place—you’ve put in a lot of effort to build everything up. Now it’s time to start adding some details and have fun! (well, I mean, we should be able to have fun at every step of the process of course - I certainly try!)