54th & Pine, Philly. Not very good at this yet… gonna take a while, but spending an hour or two drawing has the same effect for me as meditation. And it raises the level of my attention– to everything I see. Nothing like it. Eyeballing this, unless you have architectural perspective training, is not easy. I do use perspective guidelines, but complex structures are a challenge… like the fucking oriel bays so common in West Philly. Every bay has two additional vanishing points, besides the right angle facades of the building, and while the upper vanishing point can be ignored with two or three story buildings, unless you’re drawing them from close up, the bays bring that into play too… cause if eye level is sitting or standing above the street–you’re seeing the bottom of those bays. Makes pretty simple buildings, quite complex, figuring out the perspective.
I’m not after geometrical perspective, but even to play with it, play with distortions, you have to have a pretty good grasp of perspective. I’m 40 plus years out of art school, so having to start all over. Going through Joseph D’Amelio’s Perspective Drawing Handbook, and finding it helpful.
Add to that, that while I’m more than competent with close in details of texture and form, with pencil or pen and ink. Draw a feather… or a pine cone: no problem. But this is a different order of drawing for me.