Le Scale e La Cantina - I (step 1)

9”x12” Smooth Bristol Board,
Pari, Grosseto Italia

I took a completely different approach when creating Le Scale e La Cantina - I than I had with any of my previous pieces, largely due to the influence of the book Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators. In this book, which was written before the advent of CAD systems and the personal computer, the author takes a remarkably practical approach towards perspective. What caught my eye most about this book was the idea that sometimes (oftentimes) one will find it necessary to "violate" the rules of mathematical perspective.

Over the past several years, I have come across a variety of different references that question the now-too-common approach of blindly following the rules of mathematical perspective, where objects converge to a specific vanishing point. While this system can make it easier to create the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional sheet of paper, this approach does not necessarily emulate the way in which we actually see. I come face to face with the reality of these insights whenever I am in Italia, which is populated with a plethora of medieval and ancient structures. Unlike modern structures, especially in Stati Uniti, Italia's ancient architecture has a variety of contours and curves that make it difficult to map onto a grid or rigid perspective frame.

And so, with the assistance of the ideas within this book, I set aside my ruler and triangle so that I could approach this piece in a very different manner. Of course, I still kept my pencils and erasers, but I used them in a very different manner. So, this piece began as a full-on sketch, without any straight lines for proportioning or even two center lines to set up a basic grid.

Everything was drawn by hand, and sometimes in a very rough manner to boot — albeit quite intentionally.

Yours in inspiration,
Michael Weaver