Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Bryant Park during lunch break


I did this sketch some months ago while having my lunch break at Bryant Park. It was a very sunny day and I was sitting right next to the lawn looking towards the row of trees that stand along 42nd Street. I utilized a regular black ink pen on my Moleskine sketchbook.

I was interested in rendering how these tall trees define a shaded space underneath and the sense of layers of depth that they produce as well. The central area of the sketch tries to show these conditions. Although I put most of the graphic effort on this portion of the composition I thought it was important to suggest with very simple elements the areas that frame it. In the background, a group of small lines gives a hint of the top of the trees. In the foreground, several dots represent the lawn. All of these graphic elements plus the presence of a couple of pigeons and the little fence at the bottom add scale and depth to the image.

Whenever I am about to draw something I always keep in mind this aspect, that the areas that lack any graphic detail, the "not-drawn" ones, are as important as the "drawn" ones. Both are of equal importance to the composition as the define each other, like in a solid-void relationship.

Nice topic to be developed further in future posts...