With some of my biro drawings, I wanted to go further in my expression of forms. I tried various things and eventually came up with a means of adding an ‘exaggerated aerial perspective’ to the biro drawings, using high quality watercolour pencils.

Exaggerated Aerial Perspective

I thought that I could improve on my expression of the three-dimensionality of the things I was trying to express, by using some colour to give an indication of how close or how distant various surfaces were. The scheme I developed, and found most effective over many drawings, involved ‘colouring’ a surface based on its distance to me, using oranges and yellows to indicate close surfaces, and blues to indicate distant surfaces. That is, the closer a surface was, the more orange it was coloured. The more distant a surface was, the bluer it was coloured. This basic scheme was an ‘exaggerated aerial perspective’.

I have seen some ‘aerial perspective’ colouring used in some artwork by other people, but not seen any use of my ‘exaggerated aerial perspective’ scheme. ‘Aerial perspective’ refers to surfaces being coloured a little more blue as they get further from our view point, because there will be more air between the viewer and the surface.

I also wanted to try to express the space and air around the forms using pale blues to surround appropriate sections of the forms.

This whole approach, of using an exaggerated aerial perspective along with pale blues around appropriate sections of the forms in my drawings, required working with very subtle changes of colour, that had to relate to all of the other colour used in the images.

Eventually, I found it useful to produce larger images using pastels on coloured-ground papers. The overall impact of these larger images using fine conté or charcoal contour lines over pastels was much stronger than my biro drawings. However, they also required a lot more time to produce (in fact, some required an enormous amount of time to produce). Here are some examples of my exaggerated aerial perspective, firstly applied to biro drawings, and then used on larger pieces produced using pastels:

21 cm (w) x 29.5 cm (h), black biro and watercolour pencils on acid-free cartridge paper.
Date produced: 12th September 2002

Drawn on-site, near home. Here, I wanted to draw the twisting, meandering, tubular forms within this Weeping Myrtle trunk (growing by the side of the road within suburbia). The movements of form within the trunk’s forms are very expressive of being part of an old watercourse.

The colour work, done using high quality watercolour pencils, was added to reinforce the expression of forms and the expression of space around the forms. Surfaces that are close to me have been coloured to be more orange. Pale blues have been applied to indicate the air that sits behind forms. ...more details...

29.5 cm x 20.5 cm, black biro and watercolour pencils on paper.
Date produced: 8th September 2005

This was drawn during a trip my wife and I made to Mount Gambier in September 2005. We went for a long walk from Mount Gambier up to the Blue Lake, then across towards the other crater lakes. We spotted the Centenary Tower, standing high on a ridge above the lakes, and knew from what we had read, that it offered great views of the whole area. We decided to try to walk up to it and see the views. It was quite a walk, with some quite steep sections, but fabulous bird life to be enjoyed all along the way.

After reaching the Centenary Tower, we marvelled at the views and the space all around. The air was cool and fresh, and carried up to us all the sounds from the neighbouring landscapes. We saw two very large dark birds gliding gracefully just out from the tower, being pursued by two smaller black birds. With a pair of binoculars, I could see that the two larger birds were Wedge-tailed Eagles, and they were being pursued by two black Crows. The crows looked very small compared to the eagles. We couldn’t believe the activity shown by the crows, ...more details...

29.5 cm x 20.5 cm, black biro and watercolour pencils on paper.
Date produced: 8th September 2005

This was drawn during a trip my wife and I made to Mount Gambier in September 2005. We went for a long walk from Mount Gambier up to the Blue Lake, then across towards the other crater lakes. We spotted the Centenary Tower, standing high on a ridge above the lakes, and knew from what we had read, that it offered great views of the whole area. We decided to try to walk up to it and see the views. It was quite a walk, with some quite steep sections, but fabulous bird life to be enjoyed all along the way.

After reaching the Centenary Tower, we marvelled at the views and the space all around. The air was cool and fresh, and carried up to us all the sounds from the neighbouring landscapes. We saw two very large dark birds gliding gracefully just out from the tower, being pursued by two smaller black birds. With a pair of binoculars, I could see that the two larger birds were Wedge-tailed Eagles, and they were being pursued by two black Crows. The crows looked very small compared to the eagles. We couldn’t believe the activity shown by the crows, ...more details...

38.5 cm (w) x 55 cm (h), conté and pastels on acid-free coloured-ground ‘Canson’ paper.
Date produced: September 2000

Drawn on-site, from the foot-bridge that spans the pine forest at Flinders University. I saw this view regularly, because I worked nearby and would usually walk through the pine forest and along the foot-bridge during lunchtimes.

I was wanting to express the three main depths within this particular view - having tree forms up close, some more at a middle distance, and others still further behind. My plan was to use an 'exaggerated aerial perspective' to try to express the space and air around the forms (with blues surrounding the forms), and to indicate relative closeness or distance (orange forms feeling closer, blue forms more distant). Grids were applied to the tree forms and ground forms, to help express the basic forms experienced. ...more details...

55 cm (w) x 75 cm (h), conté and pastels on acid-free coloured-ground ‘Canson’ paper.
Date produced: March 2001

Drawn on-site, near the foot-bridge that spans the pine forest at Flinders University. It was the impact of the 3-dimensional structure and the imposing band of the footbridge that were the main reasons for this drawing. I’ve used an exaggerated aerial perspective within the colouring, to help express the forms, structures, and hopefully even the ‘breathing’ air around everything.

What I particularly enjoy about this pastel, is that I am using colour as a way of expressing something that colour isn’t usually used for - expressing form and the space around objects or ‘masses’. Visually, it is departing from a truly experienced vision, but the departures are made for the expression of aspects of reality (experiencing the 3-dimensional forms and spaces in the scene). ...more details...

75 cm (w) x 55 cm (h), conté and pastels on acid-free coloured-ground ‘Canson’ paper.
Date produced: May 2002

A Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo flies slowly along the valley. Walking across the footbridge, which stretches across the pine forest valley through the cleared area shown in the drawing, often makes me feel as though I am floating, or flying. I deliberately didn’t draw in the bridge, and wanted to draw the scene as if I were floating without the bridge holding me up (which is why I wanted to show the point directly below me). I’ve used a very wide-angled curved-space view, with an exaggerated ‘aerial perspective’ (in the colouring), to help express the forms, structures, and hopefully even the ‘breathing’ air around everything. I applied grids over the surface of the ground and around the tree forms, to help give a stronger sense of form, structure, and orientation.

Drawn partly on-site, in the pine forest at Flinders University, and drawn partly in my studio at home directly from an earlier drawing that was done entirely on-site. A more comple ...more details...