Brian's Notebook

Closing down

brianvds@gmail.com — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:43:55 GMT

I am moving to blogspot. This blog will remain online, but all new posts will be made to my new blog here:

http://brianvds.blogspot.com/

Why, you may ask? I just sort of like the look of blogspot more, and they have some neat features, e.g. I can upload images directly to the blog instead of first having to host them somewhere else.

So unless blogspot freezes up on me again (as it has done in the past, which is why I came to LiveJournal in the first place), my dubious creativity will henceforth be expressed on the new blog.

A DIY map of the moon

brianvds@gmail.com — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:50:39 GMT

I took this photo of the moon a few days ago, simply using the camera's 10x zoom to get a bit closer (click on the pictures to see larger versions in a new window):

I was looking towards the east, thus north was to my left, and therefore the moon's north is also to the left on the photo.

So let us rotate it a bit, in order to get north at the top, as we are used to in maps:

Of course, with astronomical objects it doesn't really matter much which way is up, and one can do whatever is convenient. Because many astronomical telescopes turn images upside down, it is not unusual to see maps of the moon with south at the top.

I have marked some of the major features of the moon:

When the moon is full or nearly full, as in the photo, most of the mountains and craters are difficult to see because the sun is illuminating them from above so they don't cast long shadows. Thus the moon is at its most spectacular when it is closer to half. On the full moon, however, one can clearly see all the lunar "seas" (so named by Galileo because he thought they might be oceans; they are in fact ancient lava flows.) The Latin word for sea is mare (pronounced "MAH-ray") and the plural is maria, and one often sees these terms used instead of "seas." Most of these are visible to the naked eye, and all can be seen easily with binoculars (with which one can also see quite a large number of the lunar craters, of which I only indicated two.)

Here is a list of the features I marked in the photo:

1. Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold)
2. Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains)
3. Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity)
4. Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) (This is where Neil and Buzz took their walk on the moon!)
5. Mare Crisium (Sea of Crises)
6. Mare Nectaris (Sea of Nectar)
7. Mare Foecunditatis (Sea of Fertility)
8. Mare Vaporum (Sea of Vapors)
9. Copernicus (crater)
10. Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms)
11. Mare Humorum (Sea of Moisture)
12. Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds)
13. Tycho (crater)

Benoit Mandelbrot (1924 - 2010): Mathematics meets art

brianvds@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:05:51 GMT

I notice that the inventor/discoverer (take your pick) of fractal geometry, Benoit Mandelbrot, has died. Here is a short article from BBC about it.

Since the invention of perspective and the beginnings of modern anatomical studies in the Renaissance, there has always been a positive relationship between science and math on the one hand, and art on the other, even though they were at times barely on speaking terms. Mandelbrot was a major figure in this regard, although perhaps not intentionally. But I have always loved the imagery that can be created from the now famous Mandelbrot set:

I generated the above image (click on the image to view a larger version of it) with Fractal Explorer, which can be downloaded from the web for free, and can be used to create far more intricate and complex images than the above "quick sketch." Is it math or art or both? Either way, I think it is more beautiful than the work of many a famous abstract painter.

Of course, the noteworthy thing about fractals is that they resemble real things. Any artist who has ever painted something like this fern, or the lichens on the rocks behind it, has in fact indulged in the creation of fractal imagery:

It is also not difficult to see the resemblance between my fractal above, and these dendrite patterns in limestone (crystal dendrites look rather like plant fossils but are in fact just inorganic crystallization patterns):

We tend to associate the idea of geometry with the rather simple shapes that we all encountered in school mathematics classes. Benoit Mandelbrot was one of the first mathematicians to create, as it were, a mathematical description of far more complex shapes, including organic ones. His work also served as inspiration to artists, both traditional and modern.

Something Gothic

brianvds@gmail.com — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:53:27 GMT

A copy after "The Crucified Thief" by Robert Campin (c.1375 - 1444). For all its grim subject matter, the original is magnificent, a masterpiece of Early Netherlandish painting, and my rather crude copy cannot begin to do it justice. But here it is anyway; pencil on printer paper, 29cm x 21cm:

Highveld winter scenery

brianvds@gmail.com — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:47:39 GMT

A few days ago, some friends and I visited the small farm some 80 or 90 km east of Pretoria, where I spent much of my youth. I took some photos which, unless I messed up the HTML code or you are using some weird browser, should open in a new window when you click on the smaller images below.

There is a steep, rocky hill with a flat top that gradually slopes down into a valley towards the north. I took this picture on the hill, and its own south-facing slope (not visible here) is somewhat similar to those of the hills you can see in the distance. If you climb up those hills, you'll see that they too have fairly flat tops that gently slope down towards a further valley:

It is late winter, and the winter frosts seem to have killed everything. But this is normal for the highveld this time of year. For all the drought-stricken appearance, below ground the grasses are still alive and well and merely waiting for warmer weather and the first rains.

The soil is very rocky, and not exactly arable. But the grasses and wild herbs growing in between the rocks make for good grazing, and we saw several grey rhebok. Alas, with my simple point-and-shoot camera there was no question of taking photos of these small and rather elusive antelope.

The rocky habitat is a home to all manner of interesting things. This rock looks like someone has splashed paint over it:

It is in fact covered by lichens, which are a symbiosis of algae and fungi. Many species of lichens can live under rather extreme conditions. It hasn't rained here for many months, the nights are freezing, by day the rocks are baked in the sun. And yet they are a habitat to these hardy organisms.

This time of year many species of aloe are in bloom:

One can see more lichens on the rocks around it.

Here is a photo of the steep slope on the south side of the hill:

The tangled, dry shrub in the left foreground is wild apricot. It looks as dead as everything else, but it will soon turn green and by January or February will bear delicious, sweet-sour fruits that superficially look a bit like apricots, hence the name.

Most of the green trees down in the valley are, alas, invasive eucalyptus and wattle trees. Native to Australia, they are attractive trees but here in South Africa have become quite incredibly noxious and virtually indestructible weeds. They form a habitat for, well, just about nothing. Their leaves are not particularly edible (though I have on occasion seen cattle browse them a bit). They do not bear fruit, or serve as hosts for insects, that are of any use to local species of birds or mammals. And almost nothing will grow under them. Large swathes of the highveld are sinking below an ocean of these trees.

I have tried cutting them; they simply grew back. I sawed them off and poisoned the stumps; within a year they had all sprouted again, and for every trunk you cut off, five new ones grow in its place. It is an ongoing battle.

In their native Australia they have all manner of competitors and parasites that keep them under control, and one really needs to import some of those to do the same job here. But importing foreign species is a risky business - you need but to look at the eucalyptus trees themselves to see how easily it can end in disaster. They are also of some economic importance because the wood is extensively used in the construction and mining industries. In Mpumalanga province there are large plantations of these trees. There are thus established economic interests involved, and many powerful people who would not be too amused at the thought of seeing their profits disappear down the throat of some Australian parasite.

And thus the highveld ecosystem, already under severe pressure from farming and urbanization, is sacrificed to economic interests. It might not be the most obviously spectacular or glamourous habitat on the planet. But at least to me, it is possessed of a subtle beauty that grows on you the more you see of it.

A creek flows in the valley, into this small, shallow dam:

In dry years the creek sometimes goes completely dry, and most of the dam as well. But we had good rains last summer, and there is still plenty of water, even after many months without any rain.

I can also mess up Michelangelo...

brianvds@gmail.com — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:02:03 GMT

Not content to make a mockery of Bouguereau's refined figurative art, I decided to turn my infernal gaze on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel decorations. Some friends and I regularly do "hobby evenings": we sit around a table and get drunk, and everyone works on a hobby, whether it be scrapbooking, drawing or just drinking and talking nonsense. This rough copy after one of Michelangelo's figures was the result of one such evening:

Now that I have given up trying to copy anything correctly, or achieving any illusion of realism, I am having far more fun with the whole thing. Alas, it does cut a gruesome swathe through the works of the great masters of old...

Apologies to Mr. Bouguereau...

brianvds@gmail.com — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 04:40:17 GMT

...for this rather amateurish copy of his masterpiece "The Bather." I have gone and turned it into a piece of awkward post-impressionism. The deep rumbling sound you hear is the master spinning in his grave. Alas, strictly realistic drawing is not my strong point.

Mechanical pencil, HB, on a scrap of printer paper about 15cm x 20cm:

Enduring duress due to Dürer

brianvds@gmail.com — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:26:51 GMT

Another of my rather small (about 10cm x 15cm) ballpoint sketches after the Old Masters; this time an engraved portrait by Albrecht Dürer of his friend Willibald Pirckheimer.

Alas, "drawing like Dürer" is something far easier said than done! Still, I suppose one has to try.

Small copies of great works

brianvds@gmail.com — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 06:11:13 GMT

In some quiet moments at work, I made time to make sketches after some master artists in a small (about 10cm x 15cm) sketchbook. As usual, I couldn't really do justice to the masters, but I suppose one has to start somewhere. They are all in ballpoint pen, and as I usually do, I lived dangerously by not first making pencil sketches - just went at it with the ballpoint and hoped not to make too many mistakes!

Here's one copied from a character in the Tintin comic book "Flight 714"; a greedy, self-centered industrialist named Laszlo Carreidas, and one of the most hilariously unpleasant characters Hergé ever created:

After a painting by Filippino Lippi (c. 1457 – 1504):

And after an artist I recently discovered, namely the Victorian painter Evelyn Pickering de Morgan (1855 – 1919); I like her somewhat pre-Raphaelite fantasies:

An unexpected visitor

brianvds@gmail.com — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 04:10:26 GMT

This magnificent fellow with the red, glowing eyes and ominous skull design on its thorax fluttered into the kitchen last night. I caught it before the cat did, and put it down on a piece of paper where it politely sat still for a few photos, and remained still even when I put down a matchbox beside it for comparison. I then took it outside where it flew off into the night.

Another view of the moth. Unfortunately the bright white paper caused the critter itself to be a bit underexposed, but it was very darkly coloured, so the photo is not too inaccurate a representation.

Update: I have since managed to identify it; as I thought, it is a species of Death's Head hawk moth, more specifically, Acherontia atropos:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death%27s_head_hawk_moth

A murdered grasshopper

brianvds@gmail.com — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:03:08 GMT

The sad remnants of my cat's latest victim. She brings in a new one at least once a day. Sometimes I manage to save them, sometimes I don't. When that happens, they become artist's models before they go to the big green lawn in the sky. HB pencil on cheap printer paper; about 12cm in length (the paper, not the grasshopper.)

Groenkloof Nature Reserve, and other oddities

brianvds@gmail.com — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:07:27 GMT

I went for a visit to Groenkloof nature reserve today. Barely twenty minutes or so from Pretoria's city centre, it is one of the lesser known but better attractions this city has to offer. Don't tell anyone about it. I want it to remain as pleasant as it is. Some photos I took there:

Here and there, there are stands of trees across roads or rivers that create a cathedral-like view:

And across the Apies river, which flows through the reserve:

A few views across the reserve:

This time of year, in late summer, the many species of wild grasses often stand higher than a person (here and there my attempts at taking panoramic shots were frustrated by tall stands of grass), and display a bewitching variety of shades of green, red and yellow. Their ripening seeds are a source of food for little flocks of seed-eating birds, and many species of weaver birds, wild canaries and sparrows can be seen here. It is also a good time of year to enjoy wild flowers, such as this wild hibiscus:

At a lookout point, looking more or less westward:

The big, blocky building on the right is Voortrekker Monument, another popular but somewhat dour tourist attraction.

The reserve is home to a fairly wide variety of wildlife, such as these giraffes, and a rather nice feature of this reserve is that one can walk or cycle around freely on the many trails, and therefore you don't have ugly fences between you and the animals:

Alas, my ancient point-and-shoot camera is not really the right equipment for wildlife photography. If you have good vision, perhaps you can see the impala ram near the middle of this picture. It bolted in a panic a second or two after I took this photo:

The zebras are more visible, but still not exactly the kind of thing that is going to grace the pages of National Geographic:

I fared much better with dead wildlife, such as this wildebeest skull:

So much easier when the models politely remain still!

I also made time for a quick sketch; some dead leaves from the plane trees under which we had a picnic:

On a completely different note, one of my recent attempts at oil painting. I am reasonably satisfied with the ceramic, but that apple gives me the creeps. For some reason, I struggle to paint apples. I'll have to go back to the drawing board with these infernal fruits...

Number 19

brianvds@gmail.com — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:37:28 GMT

And here's attempt #19. I first hated it, but after a day or two it didn't seem so terrible anymore. Usually it works the other way round: I initially think a drawing or painting worked out nice, and the next day it looks horrible.

Some recent daubings

brianvds@gmail.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:06:20 GMT

Two small oils, both 15cm x 21cm:

Keeping track of my oil paintings, the above two are numbers 17 and 18. Another hundred, and they might actually begin to look like something.

In a lighter vein, two small sketches made with coloured ballpoint pens:

A fun medium, but I have much to learn about it...

A visit to the Wild West

brianvds@gmail.com — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:45:19 GMT

Another sketch in ballpoint pen, this time after a painting by Eanger Irving Couse (1866-1936), who was noted for his paintings of Native Americans. As usual, no preparatory drawing in pencil, and thus, lots of errors I'll just have to forgive myself for...

Grazing in the pasture

brianvds@gmail.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:25:18 GMT

I am a great fan of the work of Rogier van der Weyden (c.1400 - 1464), but I am so completely in awe of it that I tend to be reluctant to even try to copy it, because I just know I'll achieve little more than to insult the man.

But I made the effort to overcome my fear and, in a few quiet moments at work, made a sketch after a detail from his "Descent from the cross." Seeing as most of his surviving drawings are in silverpoint, I decided to use what I consider to be something of a modern equivalent, namely ballpoint pen. Like silverpoint, it gives a thin, even line that cannot be erased, and the overall result is perhaps somewhat similar, although ballpoint does not give the same light, lyrical tone. When using it without a preliminary drawing in pencil, as I did here, it is a terrifying and exhilarating medium, like the artistic equivalent of a roller coaster. Whatever mistakes you make, you just have to live with, or somehow work into the developing drawing.

I can see plenty of hideous errors here. But there isn't a thing I can do about them now, except to try to do better next time. My apologies to Mr. van der Weyden.

And what about the weird title of this post? It is a pun that only people somewhat versed in art history will get.

Back to oil

brianvds@gmail.com — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:51:16 GMT

It has been almost a year since I have last tried to do anything in oil. Withdrawal symptoms compelled me to take them up again. Only to find that I have become rather rusty, and had to relearn all manner of things. Still, in the end the thing didn't look much more or less horrid than all my previous attempts.

I keep track of how many oil paintings I do. This one is number 16. Another hundred or so and perhaps they'll start to look like something.

Charitable art

brianvds@gmail.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:36:33 GMT

I stumbled upon this link the other day:

Night of a 1000 drawings

They are collecting small art works by anyone, at whatever level of skill, to sell in order to benefit some or other charity. So why not get a bit of experience while benefiting the poor and downtrodden? Here is what I came up with; it was fairly loosely done from a photo I recently took of jacarandas in bloom in a street near here. This time of year, all of Pretoria is purple with jacaranda blooms. The sketch is A5 size, as they requested, in pen and ink with watercolour:

Recent sketches

brianvds@gmail.com — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:24:45 GMT

A few recent small watercolour sketches, all turned into greeting cards...

About 15cm x 10cm:

And about 7cm x 10cm:

Another Halloween edition

brianvds@gmail.com — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:31:58 GMT

Decorations for a Halloween-themed barbecue, rather loosely copied from Goya's "Saturn devouring his children":

and from Arnold Böcklin's "Medusa":

Both Goya and Böcklin are probably turning in their grave, but that's precisely what Halloween is all about, not?

Mike's massively muscled mamas

brianvds@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:19:24 GMT

I have something of a love-hate relationship with Michelangelo. His genius is undisputed, but his work can be pretty weird. I'm thinking specifically of his Sistine Chapel decorations, with all those absurdly muscled figures. Including even the women! Still, they make for interesting drawing practice, so I tried my hand at the Delphic sibyl, which is one of the more normal-looking ladies he painted for Pope Julius.

Alas, halfway through the drawing I got the flu, and spent the next week or two in bed staring at the incomplete drawing. Must have been swine flu too, since I haven't had common old seasonal flu in ages. I thought I'm immune, but apparently not. Anyway, by the time I felt like myself again, I was sick of the drawing and left it somewhat incomplete.

And another old master copy...

brianvds@gmail.com — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:33:23 GMT

Another one of my attempts to follow in the footsteps of the masters of old. This time, I tried out a copy of the Portrait of a gentleman, by Andy of the Chestnut, better known to art historians as Andrea del Castagno (1421-1457). It is entirely in HB mechanical pencil, so I did not get the darks quite as dark as they should be, but I think on this point I have good precedents on my side: in Castagno's time, lots of drawings were done in silverpoint, which tends to be a light, lyrical sort of medium. The original can be seen here, and here's my somewhat dubious copy; I think my drawing actually looks a bit better than this photo of it, which managed to make some dark lines look much darker than they actually are:

Copying after the masters is monstrously difficult fun...

brianvds@gmail.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:22:45 GMT

I decided to try my hand at a slightly more refined drawing than the quick and rough sketches that I usually do, by making a copy (or rather, trying to make a copy!) of an original by the 19th century French academic artist William Bouguereau (1825 - 1905). My drawing actually looks a bit better than the digital photo of it here, which somehow exaggerated tones and lines, and making the drawing look rougher than it is. But it is still pretty crude compared to Bouguereau's highly refined original, which can be seen here.

In short, I got almost everything wrong. For one thing, I failed to capture a likeness in the face, although I can perhaps forgive myself for that, because the head in my drawing is only 4 cm high, and it can be difficult to work on so small a scale. But I can see plenty of other problems here as well, some of which I only noticed now, and some of which I did notice while drawing but couldn't work out how to solve, or that I could solve but not without introducing new problems in the process. I do think the whole exercise was a very valuable learning experience though. As Ed Wood said of his awful movies, my next one will be better. Here is my attempt; it is about 25cm x 18cm, in pencil on cheap computer printer paper (which was of course mistake number one):

There is a perception amongst many contemporary art critics that Bouguereau and his academic colleagues were painters of kitsch for the upper middle classes, purveyors of mere polite pretty pictures. To those who hold to such views, I would suggest trying to copy some of his work, and then see whether there is anything at all "mere" about this level of technique and craftsmanship. I get the impression that much of the criticism against technically competent art is born from nothing more than simple jealousy, and that "kitsch" has become a word that means nothing more sophisticated than "highly skilled art that I somehow still don't like, and definitely couldn't produce myself."

It is of course true that Bouguereau painted for the rich, and that his paintings are mostly on the polite side. What else was he supposed to do? It took at least several weeks to complete a painting of this level of refinement, and such a painting then had to be sold for the equivalent of several weeks' worth of salary, or no artist would be able to make a living. Only the rich could afford to pay that kind of money for paintings, and hence it was inevitable that artists had to reach compromises between what they wanted to paint and what the market wanted. This is still true today.

Now had it been a mob of desperately poor peasants that complained about the bourgeois style of the academic painters, one might understand their vehemence. But the irony is that the people who accuse Bouguereau of being a mere propagandist for bourgeois values, are for the most part themselves as blandly bourgeois as you'll find anywhere on the planet. I have yet to meet an art critic who doesn't live in upper middle class comfort. That these people have the nerve to complain about how the academic artists didn't "challenge the status quo" is pretty rich, considering that neither they nor the artists they frequently do promote do anything of the sort either. People who really do challenge society end up in poverty, prison or both. They don't live comfortable middle class lives or get paid millions for their work like, say, Damien Hirst. So if it is not a sin for a contemporary artist to produce whatever the rich (and their favourite art critics) want, in order to make a decent living from his or her work, I wonder why it should be considered to have been such a sin for 19th century artists, especially ones that went to the trouble of acquiring actual skill at something other than postmodernist pseudo-philosophy.

But enough ranting. I have to get back to the drawing board, so to speak...

And two more sketches

brianvds@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:25:58 GMT

Quick, small sketches in pen and watercolour, both about 10cm x 14cm. Both done from reference photos; I am very far from being able to do this sort of thing from life, seeing as animals have the annoying habit of moving around all the time...

And now for something completely different

brianvds@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:52:33 GMT

Yesterday I watched the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, and noticed something rather cool. In Dracula's castle, there is this old portrait of him hanging on the wall:

And here's another view, of the count himself, his latest victim sitting at the table, and the portrait in the background:

So does that painting look familiar to anyone?

It is of course based on the self-portrait by Albrecht Dürer, painted around 1500:

Always nice when film makers put little touches like this one in their movies. Next project: see if I can work out whether that sculpture behind the count is also based on some famous work of art...