Understanding Cast Shadows

By way of something completely different -- I'll be teaching a background and layout class this term and one of the technical issues I discuss is drawing cast shadows accurately. I've been setting up a lot of these little still-lifes and then diagramming on top of them.

Recent Sketch

Recent Sketch

This is possibly the most beautiful door I've ever seen.
I've noticed that doors show up pretty frequently in my sketchbook. I'm sure there's some deep seated psychological reason for this -- security, portals of entry, potential mystery -- but since I tend to draw them in the fall I'm pretty sure it all comes back to trick-er-treating.

Recent Sketch

Playing with more panoramic pictures. (Alliteration is sorta fun!)

Recent Sketch: Panning Background

Giving a 360 pan layout a try. Little too heavy on the wall/corner distortion, but I think that's fixable.

Recent Sketch

Another little iso study. A little more technical than the last one (you can see that I ticked off the base layer into units)

Recent Sketch

Playing with isometric perspective layouts.
Not something I typically use for my projects, but kinda cool.

On another note -- where did the last couple weeks go?! I've been working away on a series of YA novel covers (and interiors), and apparently have completely neglected this blog. I'll work to correct that.

Travel Sketches: Air and Space Museum