- Hi, and welcome.

I'm Kath Macaulay, and this is "Pocket Sketching."

What are we going to do this time?

We're going to do architecture, linear architecture perspective.

It's dreaded, but I found a way that makes it fun and well, I wouldn't say easy, but you'll only have to do it once and you'll have it for life.

It's worth doing it.

Come along with us.

(upbeat music) This time we're doing buildings, so I'm going to start with not the greatest.

Of course, I did the sketch.

What's wrong with this?

Too much stuff.

No focal point.

The colors don't proceed the way they should.

The contrast isn't right.

You know, just about everything's wrong with it.

By contrast, let me show you another.

This one's kind of fun.

I've taught in Ann Arbor for years and the buildings in Ann Arbor are just darling.

So this was a building I had to pass on the way to teach a workshop every day and pass it on the way back.

I wanted to sketch everything.

In fact, I did that several times.

I got the side of the building, I got the bench, I got the window, I got the mailbox, I got the door, I got the tree, I got the two Adirondack chairs, and I got this.

I got everything.

It just didn't work.

It was like this.

And then one day I was passing the building and I said, "That's what it is, it's only one thing."

This is a focal point.

Now take a look at the two together.

There is a change in color to begin with.

It's all about the red bench.

The building's been changed from blue to green, the opposite color of red, to bring out the bench.

There were rocks there at the base of the bench.

There were flowers, there they are.

The plants, everything's there, but everything is played down to the focal point.

When you are looking at something that is this busy, go back to our lessons in first focal point.

Remember to pull up your thumb.

If you can focus on that thumb, then you can't see what's behind it.

If you focus on what's behind it, you don't see the thumb.

Pick a focal point, make it prominent.

Everything else is secondary.

Figure out what is characteristic of the property you're looking at.

Then, of course, you can use your viewfinder to cut everything down.

You can decide whether you've got a vertical or a horizontal.

You have all the tools, so don't leave with this.

If you must have all of this, take a picture with your cell phone, you will have all of it.

But when you really concentrate on that focal point, you look at your sketch, you'll remember all the rest of the stuff.

You don't have to include it, it just makes it junky.

Here's another one that worked out very, very, very well.

You're going to see this, it's a focal point.

I wanted to make a point that the bricks are not a focal point.

Look how faded out they are.

This is with this little bit of ornamentation.

You're going to go right there.

This helps offset it.

It's a dark without any characteristics, so it's the dark that sets off the focal point.

As for the arch, you get a few more bricks, but over here they're out of focus.

Over here, they're out of focus.

They're there just to show you that it is an arch that I'm looking through.

You really have to zoom in on what you want your viewer to see.

It's really fun to do that.

Another one which is really enjoyable, what is the focal point here?

Come down to the people.

This is pretty much out of focus.

It doesn't matter.

The arch helps swing you back around into the focal point, but it is not the subject.

Here is all your color, your brightness, your colors, and anytime you put people in, they're gonna take over, usually take over the whole focal point.

And they do in this case, you see them, they're somewhere in an audience with buildings in the background.

The buildings are secondary.

They are the focal point.

It's fun to play with this, and you can vignette.

A vignette, you would remember this from photography from probably the 1800s and the 1900s when in an oval frame, the edges have been dodged out and they're grayed out and then this, the person, the subject is in focus in the middle.

That's a vignette.

Well, you can do that in sketching too.

Saves time.

It really saves time.

Just put in the focal point, leave the rest of this stuff out.

This is in Santa Barbara, California and there's architecture everywhere, but what's characteristic is the red tile roofs, white buildings, and palm trees.

Get that much and you pretty much got it.

You don't have to go any farther than that.

Notice how much time is spared, but now I'm going to show you another one.

Make sure I get this right side up.

There's something decidedly wrong here, to say nothing of whatever that is.

If you're looking at the windows, notice they go down there, the bottom goes up.

I am looking at those windows from the side, hence going away from me it goes down, on the bottom it goes up, but the planter is straight across.

Obviously, I wasn't looking at that from the end because if I had been looking at it from the end, this isn't the greatest sketch and I won't feel badly if I do this to it.

This would have gone up.

The flowers would've gone like this and down.

The bottom would've gone up at a greater angle than that.

It would've been here and this would've been far more.

So I've got my perspective off and this time we're gonna be dealing with perspective.

The next one, this is a winner.

(laughs) Perspective is on.

Now the difference.

I was doing this for pleasure, I was doing this because the owner of the restaurant wanted it.

So the perspective on this, it's going up, and I'll explain this to you in a few minutes, and the top is gonna be going down, and the sidewalk continues to go up in the distance.

The building over there, it's hidden, but it would go down.

That is the perspective of buildings, and it's quite confusing and I can say that I've been very, very confused by the way people have told me, "Oh, yeah, this is how you do it, it's just really easy."

No, it's not really easy.

I've put boxes on a table and put a single light source on them and tried to draw them and got absolutely frustrated.

So, and I did figure it out.

Let's see if there's anything else, I wanna really, really... Ah, let's see.

Let's get into the nitty gritty of this, and the nitty gritty is coming.

Now, this is an exercise I hate.

I've only done it once.

When I got my very first job in life, it was in a medical laboratory and there was a motto on the wall, and this motto has been with me for my whole life, I love it.

"If you can't find time to do it right, when are you gonna find time to do it over?"

If I have to do something I hate in art, I don't know about other things, but in art, I put in a reward Before I ever start.

My rewards are a glass of wine at the end or I get to go play in the garden.

Other people would call that work, to me it's play.

Or if it's really bad, I get a glass of wine in the garden.

This exercise was a glass of wine in the garden, and I'm good for an hour and a half on something I don't wanna do.

An hour and a half after that, return on invested time goes downhill super fast and there's no sense.

And if I get to the end of an hour and a half, I use a timer.

When I get to the end of an hour and a half, if I have any energy left to do anymore, I will put in 15-minute increments 'cause I can do those, but I cannot look at doing it for a real long time.

So don't beat yourself to death on this exercise, that's my point.

This is what we're going to be doing.

This is an exercise, and I can mark up the one that's under it.

I'm not gonna mark this one up.

Where do you find this setup?

You find it in your house.

If you don't have a hall, somebody else does.

The end of the hall probably has an end point, like a door.

This is our hall, that's the door.

Over it is the intake for the heating/cooling system.

The bottom fortunately has tile.

If you don't have a tile floor, probably put, if you have a long rug, even a short rug that doesn't fill the whole hall, put that down because it's going to give you your angles.

Next thing, for the first one, sit on a chair, it makes it easier, right next to this wall.

Not in the middle, not on that side, right next to this wall.

And you're gonna use this position basically again.

When you're sitting on a chair, you will see if you actually look, now your problem is look straight ahead and get a sense for what the floor is doing.

What the floor is doing is it is going up in a line to your eye level in the distance.

The ceiling is going down in a line to your eye level in the distance.

So these lines are going to do that, but don't worry about that yet.

Start with the door.

So I blew it up a touch.

This one's kind of weak and I'm not sure that the red marker will work, but I'm gonna try it.

Do the door first, it's easy.

It's straight ahead of you, it's square, it's easy.

So do the door, and you don't use a ruler, freehand it because when you're out in the real world, you're gonna freehand it.

If you use a ruler, it looks like a machine did it and you've gotta be accurate.

If you use your hand, it's a little inaccurate and the viewer will accept all the imperfections, so go for it.

So here's my door.

I even stuck on the hinges on this side.

And it had details, so go ahead and put the details in.

Has a doorknob, has that detail.

Had a panel at the bottom.

This one is easy, so enjoy doing it.

And the door didn't quite fit there, that's okay.

So you got the door.

Now the door is in a piece of wall frame.

So go ahead, this is all easy.

And now you get to something you've seen artists do.

You've seen them outside holding up their brush.

They are not reading the label, they are using it to figure out the angles on anything architectural.

Shut one eye and you can see it.

This is straight across.

Now on the floor, which might be easier than the ceiling, match that angle.

You're holding it up to your eye, match that angle.

If necessary, take your hand and do a vertical and see that angle.

That is the angle that this is going away from.

You put that on your paper next.

Now I've got doors in my hall, but this is consistent throughout.

There's my bottom angle and it had a baseboard, which I can see here.

There's the baseboard, not so obvious there.

That's the bottom.

What about this next one?

Now I'm doing that here, I'm doing this.

Do it again.

Hold that down to where you see it.

Get the angle.

Is it that way?

Is it this way?

Is it that way?

Hold it to the tile, find out your angle.

Put the angle in.

Do it again.

Now if there's a tile right here, that one would come straight to me, showing exactly where I'm sitting.

But this one was over farther.

That one is over farther.

Now you could do that side, but we're gonna finish this side.

Now do the ceiling.

Okay, hold it up to the ceiling, one eye.

Get the angle.

Is it like this?

Is it like this?

Is it like that?

You will get the angle, and that is this angle.

Do you have doors that come off?

Here's the corner at the end of the hall.

That one's easy, but do you have doors that come off?

That one came down here.

That one comes down here.

Notice that these lines are crooked.

Oh, if your hand is on, have something solid under this, like a piece of cardboard or a board.

If your finger or hand is resting on that, this line will be straighter.

If you've had a lot of coffee, it'll be crookeder.

You'll have a shake in your hand, which I have not mentioned.

I'll mention it right now 'cause I'll forget it otherwise.

If you happen to have shaky hands, do not despair.

The line that you draw with a shaky hand is fascinating.

I had a woman in my class with extremely shaky hands and I didn't say anything but her hands really, really, really shook.

She also had a kind of a limp when she walked in.

After class, she gave me a check.

I couldn't read the writing, I could read the numbers, but nothing else.

And I asked her about it, and she had had a stroke.

She was a surgeon, right-handed, she'd had a stroke, she'd lost her entire right side.

She was determined to get it back.

And I said, "While you're going to achieve that 'cause you're that determined, but while you're doing this, keep that shake.

Continue to sketch and accent the shake so you don't lose it because you have an ability almost nobody else has, and it is beautiful and it's just a gorgeous line."

Anyway, that's a total aside.

Now when you get through this, you're gonna have to do the other side.

You are sitting over here.

So now what's gonna happen is this side comes in more than this side.

Now you use your pen like this to see how much it comes in, and then you'll use your pen like this to get the angle from the ceiling and the floor.

It is more involved.

So first, this one's a snap, you're looking at that straight on.

That's a snap.

But now you have to deal with these.

So go ahead and use your pen.

You get the angle and you, well, I'd be doing it up here like this.

Get the angle and notice the angle the way it comes in.

You can bring that down to your paper, hold it and imitate that line.

Let me tell you, this is not easy, it takes tremendous concentration.

Right now I'm doing it here over one that exists.

It's not that easy when you're doing it yourself, but like I said, get it right once so that you don't have to do it again.

Really, you're gonna see the end of this doorframe differently from over here.

Get that in.

Then it goes across, you're gonna get that one.

How many doors are on that side?

Get the upper part, it goes like that.

And you can see more of the interior of the door because you're over here.

The floor, you're gonna see more of this interior.

You're gonna see the baseboard.

You're gonna see this.

In every case, you're going to use your pen to get your angles.

Shut one eye so you can see them.

Then, in my case, is there anything on the ceiling?

In my case, yes.

And I happen to be pretty well lined up with this side of the intake.

Then, of course, you've got this one and it has a frame, and then that one is at an angle.

Get that one.

Now you can see how long this takes.

It took me an hour and 15 minutes.

Oh, but this is only one of them, (laughs) there's more.

But wait, there's more.

Now you're going to come back.

You can take a break, but you might as well do this all in one go through 'cause I think it's an awful exercise, but man, is it gonna pay off.

You've done this sitting in a chair, get rid of the chair, now do it standing.

When you are standing, every angle changes and now you will understand architectural perspective.

If that's not enough, I didn't have to do the third one, I did the second one.

The third one is sit on the floor and do it a third time, all times sitting next to the same wall.

You, if you go through the third one, you will really hate this exercise.

However, the next time you are outdoors and you look at the buildings across the street from your house, you've got them, you've got every one of those angles.

You can see them, you can see where they diminish into the distance at your eye level.

If you were to stand on a ladder, all the angles change.

Sit on the ground outside, angles change.

So they always meet at your eye level in the distance.

Now this is basically one point perspective.

There are people who take great joy in doing multiple point perspective.

It isn't necessary.

Once you get this, you've really got perspective.

The other people are, in my mind, they're showing off.

It's like the people who go out and paint in the snow so they can tell you how cold it was.

No, take the car, be in warmth, have the radio on, paint in snow.

I don't do that stuff.

(laughs) It's not necessary.

So you get the idea from this one.

I think the other one that I did was done also from the sitting angle, yeah.

Incidentally, when you see somebody's work, you will know exactly where the artist was and whether they were sitting or standing by the angles that they include in their work.

It tells you if somebody leaves their sketchpad behind in one of my workshops, they have done one exercise, all of them in the room from where they're sitting, and I know who they are and where they're sitting.

If they leave it behind, I can telephone the right person because of the angles they used, it is that telling.

It's really quite amazing.

So I'm gonna look at a couple more and just show you how it worked out.

This one, oh, you know, more important than anything else, more important than the angles, is the atmosphere.

Get it right.

You want to show what got your attention in the first place.

There was something there of value or you never would've wasted your time on this, so get the atmosphere.

In this case, I didn't have to deal with angles on the adobe, but there was an incredibly dark sky.

This is northern New Mexico and the clouds can be just, they can be about that dark, really intense.

But I did get the angle on that building.

I'm looking at that one from this side, looking at it straight here, but that is a telling angle.

This is just a front.

This one I'm really happy with.

But the next one, I'm gonna make a couple corrections on this one.

I love doing this.

This is very recent.

It's Cerrillos, New Mexico.

It's near Santa Fe.

But in this case, I have to go back to one of your earlier lessons.

So just a minute, I'm gonna do it.

Get the paints out, I'll tell you what I see as wrong.

Now, there it was right, but on the sketch, it's wrong and I'm going to change it.

I'll point it out.

I'm looking at the building from here.

My angles are all fine, I'm happy with that.

Love the building.

It was a beautiful little village, almost no houses in it.

This is going away from me, but it doesn't show that, it just makes you curious.

I mean, how could this happen?

This looks, this is in the same angle.

It fits well enough, it's a wall and it was stepped down otherwise it would've gone from here, it would've continued the angle of the windows.

But this, see, you'll see what happens.

The mountains in the distance, the atmosphere is incredibly clear.

So the mountains in the distance were this intensely colored.

I was careful with that, but now you see it out of context and that is jumping forward because of the color, so let's make a change.

I don't even need a big brush, I just need water.

Just make a little change and I think this is gonna come out much better.

I need a blue wash.

Oh, heck, I've got it up.

I have my blue wash right here.

I'm gonna kill this first.

Don't know how much, but I'm sure gonna get this out of here.

Come right up to there.

Okay, and now blue wash to take that back out of view.

Okay, now this is stepping up.

Take it back.

That's that same mountain.

And usually when I'm doing this, I'll do a little bit, see if it works, and then see if I need a little bit more.

That took that back.

Notice it went away.

How easy is that?

Get rid of this a little bit because I want you up here.

Kill this a little bit, not necessarily with blue.

How about a bit of burnt sienna and a bit of blue?

That'll turn out a gray.

Would it be warm?

If it's warm, well, it's doing it right now.

A little bit more burnt sienna, warm color.

The warm colors are your yellows, your oranges, your reds.

Cool colors, the blues.

Very easy to remember.

You feel cool when you see blue.

Now this has jumped forward, get it out of there.

And then I don't wanna do much because this was just a very light colors, not a whole lot of color change.

Take it out of the dilute stuff, don't take it out of the regular paint.

And I'm not gonna wreck this by showing what would happen.

I happened to love this sketch and I will frame it.

Just bring this up a bit, a little bit warmer color to make it advance.

You'll see it in a minute.

It's working.

This is just, it's amazing how well this works.

Just a bit.

And then why not tiny bit there, tiny bit here.

See the difference?

That's on color and contrast.

It's amazing what it'll do.

Remember all the basics.

You got perspective of color, perspective of contrast, and focal point.

And it is so easy to manipulate these that now the white roof in the distance (upbeat music) needs to go down just a little bit, a little bit on the far edge, not much, just a bit so it's not quite so glaring and pulls you down there.

You have control over everything, so have fun doing buildings, and happy sketching.

(upbeat music continues) Want to learn more about the wonderful world of "Pocket Sketching?"

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All this and more is available at pocketsketching.com.

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(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)