Sketching week 9: Atmosphere, do I look like an “atmosphere”?

If you are not French you wont get the joke in the title of this entry: “do I look like an atmosphere” is one of old french movies’ most famous lines, and everybody knows that line in France, including people who never saw the movie – so don’t worry about it – inside joke 😀

(Arletty in “Hotel du Nord” (1932), not sure about the year-  a dark, realistic depressing movie)

Atmosphere….. there is no atmosphere in space so if you paint a scene from “Gravity”, you’ll have to find a way to show what is near the viewer and  what is not (with overlapping most of the time). In fact, people making movies like Gravity have to take into account the lack of atmosphere quite a lot: no fog, no dust, no smog, not even air to show that that “cowboy” is afar in the distance.

Let’s concentrate on down to earth (or any earth-like planet) scenes, and use atmosphere. The Chinese did it so well, so early: mist between two mountains, shown by a lack of ink between the mountains (themselves painted in ink) and the reverse can be done too: a railroad track starting under the virtual feet of the viewer, in the distance there is a layer of dust and desaturation (so to speak) that is added, painted by the artist.

So add or take away, but put atmosphere.

And  this is where I failed miserably this week: at sketching with atmosphere. Why on earth did I choose to draw at length two ladies seated at a café table? So close together, so little atmosphere! Glenn says I could have done “atmosphere” but… ok there is my thing (the dog was not there, I added it just because I love drawing dogs -teehee!)

What did Glenn say? First of all it’s overworked for a sketch, this looks like an illustration (good or bad) not a sketch. Second: Where is the atmosphere? people on both sides of the tables looks exactly the same in terms of clarity: no atmosphere!. Third: why the biiiig space around them? The bit of café behind them is so tall that it makes them look smaller, and therefore closer to each other and therefore… even atmosphere less!

What did I write about bruised knees?

In any case Glenn seem to think I made a bad choice of media by using a pen (translated in my language: Anton you moron!) and he would once more like to see some brush and wash work – wash is so great for creating atmospheric perspective.

I think I’m going to have to do it soon, weather permitting.

Meanwhile draw a lot, you people and see you soon.