I love the dual meaning of perspective in these drawings. Project 3 required me to use resource materials from real spaces to develop believable settings for my hero’s story.  I had to first think a little bit ahead to the story I wanted to tell and that involved perspective on my life and what I think is meaningful about it. I decided to show myself a scene from my past, when I was a distance learner in Nairobi, my present, where I am taking classes at GSU Clarkston, and my future, where I hope to be working as an art therapist in my home city ATL, GA. 

Atlanta is both my birthplace and chosen home, the place I have returned to from faraway shores.  The view of downtown from the Jackson Street Bridge is iconic, so I found a photograph I liked and used that for my first 1-point perspective piece, on 4” x 17” mixed-media paper, using crow quill pen and ink wash.  The highways converging into downtown made for an easily identifiable vanishing point and clear orthogonal lines, and the street lamps in the foreground and skyline in the distance were obvious anchors to develop an atmospheric drawing by varying the line and tone used. 

I was developing an idea for using my truck — “Russ’s truck” — as a motif in my narrative, and I knew I wanted to include being a student at GSA as part of my story.  So I decided to pose the truck in front of the Fine Arts building and take a picture of it there for my next drawing.  For this one, I used 9” x 12” tan toned paper and terracotta and white color pencils.  The relative position of the truck, tree, walkway, building, and distant parking lot helped create a sense of depth, and I tried to layer color on the truck to show that it was closest. 

Finally, I took inspiration from the article about Yuko Shimizu using Google maps as a resource, and dove deep into my personal history by walking around my old neighborhood in Nairobi using Street View.  I used a brown watercolor pencil to show the closer, warmer side of the mall breezeway and used the cooler purple tone for the receding parts.   

For each of these, I used printed images to mark out the vanishing point, horizon line, and orthogonal lines, then transferred these guides lightly onto my paper to help me get started.