Breaking Through: Step 4
The end result of all the back and forth was a sketch for the design of the house that looked a little like this:
Ok, exactly like that. At last I had final approval on the composition, and was ready to actually begin the painting. The first step was to stretch and prime the canvas, which was to be 55X34. This sounds like an odd size, but it was based both on measurements of the space in which the painting would eventually hang, and on the Fibonacci ratio (A.K.A. the golden mean or Devine Proportion) of 1.618 to 1. For those of you who may be interested, the Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers given by starting with a zero and a one, and then adding the two consecutive numbers to get the next one. 0+1 is 2, 1+2 is 3, 2+3 is 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on. The result of dividing two consecutive numbers in the series converges on 1.61803 as the numbers get larger. This ratio is also the only number that differs from its inverse by exactly 1 (1/1.61803=0.61803). So there’s today’s fun math fact. Of more interest aesthetically is that the ratio shows up everywhere in the real world from the spirals in nautilus shells and pineapple skins to the relative lengths of the sections of a finger or of the upper arm to the lower arm. And the Greeks thought it was pretty cool. Cool enough to declare it the most aesthetically pleasing ratio around. I’m not claiming that I believe there is any superiority of this proportion in putting together a composition, but I do find it interesting. Incidentally, the horizon line is also placed based on a multiple of the same ratio. I should mention that I didn’t set out to design the composition based on the Golden Mean, but when I checked the proportions in my comp sketch, they were so close that I decided to tweak them into compliance for the final painting.
The next step was to find a model. Oddly enough, after a few weeks of looking specifically for someone who fit the bill with no luck, the Greeks became involved in the painting for the second time. Sort of. Sara and I were enjoying a lovely lunch in a little Greek restaurant in Salt Lake, when Sara suddenly pointed out that there was a guy standing in line that looked exactly like the figure in my sketches. Being my best model recruitment agent (and being a woman and therefore 75 to 80 percent less likely to get maced when approaching potential models), she immediately cornered the guy and made the pitch. Not only was he interested in modeling, but coincidentally, was an actual architect and volunteered to bring a set of blueprints to the scrap shoot for use as a prop.
I put together this little combined image of the approved composition and the new house design to give myself a reference and the model some idea of what I was after.
Once I had all the reference photos, I sat down and worked out the final details of the composition incorporating the actual figure, all the perspective work on the house, and the final layout of the cliffs. The image below is a scan of the resulting scale drawing which I then transferred to the canvas.
March 31st, 2008 at 6:52 am
ONLY 75 to 80 percent less likely to get maced? I think you might owe Sara an apology.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Wow. I admit I have not visited the artist’s studio in a long time, but the blurb in this month’s gallery update email got me interested with its talk about architects and painting the birth of one’s career (for obvious reasons). I am astounded at the depth of thought, amount of time, and number of preliminary sketches that are needed to get to a point where actual painting can start. In my mind I have been comparing Larsen’s dialogue with what probably goes through the minds of most modern artists as they begin a painting (nothing, or random gushes of emotion with neither cause nor direction). A true artist is an architect himself, I now realize. Thank you.