watercolor sketches

How Funny Were The Golden Globes Last Night?

Did you catch the Golden Globes last night? Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were brilliant. I don't know why I get embarrassed hearing Hollywood stars getting lampooned in real time. I mean, they've got money, they've got egos, why do I care if they are uncomfortably humiliated in public? Of course it's the ones who retain their composure under fire that draw one's admiration. Maybe that's why they trot themselves out for the ceremony; to say to 25 million viewers, "see, we can handle being made fun of!"

Still, that one guy, Christian something or other, winning for Django? I mean, yeh, he was awesome in Inglorious Basterds--spine-tingling, jaw-dropping awesome--but best-supporting actor? I don't know.

Of course, Daniel Day Lewis for Lincoln was perfect. Have you seen it yet? Did you read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book that inspired it? If you haven't, drop everything and do so.

Well, that's it for today's post. Hope you like the rendering I did (below) for David Rockwell's 2010 Oscar's set. I also threw in a project we did for the magician David Copperfield about twenty years ago. When you get right down to it, it's pretty fun working with David. Any predictions for the Oscar's? [Wow, it's liberating writing a blog when you can be confident no one is reading it! :)]

Oh...almost forgot...for all of you search engine spiders and crawlers trying to figure out what this page is about (fellow human beings, please stop reading here and get back to your regularly scheduled lives): let me just add that the artists and architects who practice watercolor techniques, architectural rendering, architectural watercolor rendering, architectural sketching, watercolor rendering techniques, architectural sketches, watercolor techniques, architectural rendering or any of the other disciplines associated with traditional architectural rendering are few and far between. But fear not: some of us are still here, and we're a lot of fun to work with. Have a great Monday, my friends.

The Architecture Of Desire: Peep Shows, 19th C. Watercolor Technique and Las Vegas

My job can be tedious, but it isn't always a grind (sorry). As every architectural renderer knows, drawing people is more time-consuming than drawing the exterior or interior of a building. People make or break a rendering. When drawn poorly, they tell the world that you (the artist) don't actually know what you're doing, and no amount of watercolor technique can hide that.

Problem is, drawing them well takes time: time to draw the figures in convincing positions; time to dress them; time to "light" them and paint them in a way that Winslow Homer or Sargeant would be proud of. OK, maybe not that last one, but seriously, when you paint in watercolor, your watercolor technique is who you are, and as a thoughtful person putting their work out into the world, you can't pretend you don't know the work of Homer, Sargeant, Prendergast, etc.

Sometimes that investment of time is less tedious than others. For art's sake, I humbly submit "Peep Show," an entertainment/club venue that I was asked to visualize, (populate) and bring alive for a colorful Broadway director turned Las Vegas impresario. (It's like five renderings in one, so I've included vignettes after the overall view. Also: I wish to acknowledge the important contribution of friend and colleague Chad Rush in helping me get this Sistine Chapel of Soft Porn done on time.)

Click on any image to enlarge, er, um...the image.

Here's the overall view above. Details of the people below. And yes, those are naked women crawling on top of the glass-sealed VIP lounge on stage:)