Orig posted 10/23/17

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure to join Seema and Sam on a sketching activity in the Arts Quad. Seema, who studies in AAP taught us the basics of one-point and two-point perspective drawing. She managed to make something essentially complicated seem very simple within a five minute explanation.

It was a wonderful time with the weather perfect, providing an opportunity to sit on the grass and hear the marching band in the distance in preparation for Homecoming. The environment repealed any worry and was purely relaxing, my roommate and I had not even a worry about what time it was. Overall, I truly enjoyed this opportunity as it gave me a break I truly needed after another stressful week at Cornell. I hope there can be more like this in the future (even with winter coming ahead!).

I like drawing, though my style is a bit unorthodox.  Typically when drawing a scene, you start out with general shapes and then progressively get more detailed.  This helps you get the proportion of the objects in your scene right, while allowing you a lot of blank space to add details.  For some reason, I always focus on one little thing, like the column of a building, and draw it out in the most detail as I can, then move on the the next object in the scene.

On Saturday, Seema and Sam took me and a few other Rose Scholars out to draw on the Arts Quad.  Seema is getting her Ph. D. in the Department of City and Regional Planning, so naturally her drawing turned out well.  She demonstrated the difference between two point and one point perspective drawings, which seemed particularly applicable when drawing buildings, like those on the Arts Quad.  I drew Goldwin Smith Hall from a one point perspective, with the North side of the building going further back into the page and thus getting a little smaller.

It worked well, but I have to admit I resorted to old habits pretty quickly.  I don’t get to draw very often, so when I do, I am prone to doing it in my usual style.  Next time I’m drawing buildings, I will try to stick to the way Seema introduced, and hopefully my buildings will look more to scale with all the other parts of the scene.  Also, trees.  I really need to work on my trees.

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of going to the arts quad to draw some of the buildings and learn more about sketching techniques. When we first got to the arts quad, we were given a brief overview on how to use perspective. Two and one point vanishing point techniques were shown before we picked what we wanted to draw and began. As someone who took a lot of art classes in high school and occasionally paints now in college, I liked having the refresher and tips before I began sketching buildings. For my drawing, I chose to draw the edifice of Goldwin Smith. At the end, it was really interesting to see how different people captured similar parts of the campus in their own style.

The event was a really nice chance to enjoy the fall beauty and to take a few hours to relax during a busy period of the school year. I personally find drawing to be a good way to come to a place of peace because it requires such a focus on technique and the subject. Having the opportunity to enjoy a warm, sunny morning outside getting lost in art was a very enjoyable experience

It was a stunning morning on the Hill as a small group of Rose Scholars climbed to the Arts Quad for a sketching expedition. Most of us didn’t have any real art experience, but GRF Seema gave us a crash course in perspective drawing, and we found a comfortable spot in the grass from which to sketch one of the beautiful buildings surrounding the Arts Quad.

From what little I know about sketching, the most complicated images are built of fundamental shapes. This is at least what perspective sketching is all about: giant diamonds are formed when lines connect the furthest forward part of a building with the “vanishing points” far off to the sides. In theory, every 3d object around us has an underlying geometric simplicity. But sitting in front of a building like Goldwin Smith Hall—which you don’t realize is so complicated until you try to draw it—it’s hard to see those simple diamonds behind the columns, the different shapes of windows, the trees that block parts of the building, the many different contours of the roof…

You just can’t get started if you let yourself get distracted by all of the minutia, and you can’t even depict the minutia if you don’t have a stable base. The base was the hardest for me to see, and it took me so long that I only finished half of Goldwin Smith in the time I had to sketch. It did look like Goldwin Smith in the end, though (unfortunately I don’t have a picture of my work; we turned it over to Seema when we left).

Perhaps there’s a wider lesson to be learned from sketching: the patience it takes to see the big picture is how we can perceive the details without them becoming warped. Perhaps this is what a liberal arts education is all about. In my first year and a half here at Cornell, I’ve learned about electric flux, modern Egyptian history, the energy of photons, property law, Gregorian chant, thermodynamics, and the list goes on. Yet I always find myself connecting these classes in the most unlikely of ways so that I achieve an even better understanding of the world around me than I could with full immersion into one of these fields. It’s the perspective that makes the difference.

This past weekend I attended the “Sketching Event,” where each of us picked a building on the arts quad and attempted to draw it. I was unsure about signing up for this event because (1) I am far from anything that could be considered artistic, and (2) because I have never been one to enjoy at least trying to draw—I simply find it frustrating. However, I’m very glad I decided to attend this event. It was decidedly casual and fun, and it was a very pleasant and relaxing way to start my Homecoming weekend.

Half-jokingly, I asked the GRAs which building was the easiest to draw because of my lack of skill. They suggested drawing the side of Uris Library since it was mostly just boxes. After contemplating this for a few minutes, I ended up choosing to try to draw Goldwin Smith Hall instead; Uris, while simpler, was much less aesthetically interesting, and I thought it would be fun to try to capture the trees and plants around Goldwin Smith, even if the end result didn’t actually look like the scene in real life. I ended up really enjoying myself. In letting go of any expectations of what my drawing both could and should be, I was able to enjoy the process much more. Before I even realized what had happened, and hour and a half had flown by. In this way, I really do think that it’s valuable to students—especially those in entirely unrelated fields—to force themselves to tackle artistic projects every once in awhile. It truly does challenge you in a completely different way from science-heavy classes, and I feel better and more well-rounded as a person for having pushed myself to the event and try something out of my comfort zone.