A Bit Out of My Depth

The August theme for the EB Master Class is..."Depth" (as in perspective).  We are to try to incorporate into a single piece, as many of the ways of evoking depth* as we can, and then (if we are brave enough!) we are to try to "flatten" the depth in a second piece, in the manner of David Hockney.

All this...in the midst of two sets of out-of-town visitors.  The first set (July 31-Aug. 3) and I played with dye and paint over this past long weekend.  Indigo dye, to be specific, on cotton and silk, and then, to exhaust the dye baths, wool roving and batting.  Stay tuned for a separate post about that; for now, suffice to say, it was delicious!

Back to EB.  I live in an area of wonderful landscape, so over the weekend and the past day or two, I've taken some fresh photos.  I then tried to sketch them, with very mixed results.

For example, here's a line of bird houses along a fence at the Ellis Bird Farm (a sanctuary, really), which my friends and I visited on Monday:

And my abysmal attempt at sketching this out...which I abandoned early on:

Then there's this great rail fence along the lane from the farm to the parking area:

And my sorry attempt to deal with the fence posts:

I just can't seem to get the angle right.  If I were to re-create this, I'd have to take a tracing from the photo, which is not quite kosher.  Sigh...

I managed a bit better with the wooded pathway at the Farm, which frames the view in the distance:

And the sketch:

If I do that one, I'll have to do my best impression of leaves...

I am very fond of roads going off in the distance, too.  Here's a view taken driving East along Highway 12 on the way home Monday afternoon:

And my rough sketch:

Then there's the avenue a block or so north of me (most of our streets and avenues here in Mirror are gravel, or partly so):

And my sketch:

I sent the sketches of woods and both roads to EB for her assessment, feeling that I didn't have a good enough handle on the fences/birdhouse ones.

I also sent her a link to one of my daughter's recent posts -- featuring a wonderful indoor scene with great depth (she's a talented photographer).  You can check that out HERE; I'm sure you'll agree!  :-)

And so to bed...

Before I go, I'm linking this up to WIP Wednesday over at The Needle and Thread Network, in the hopes that I'll find a few minutes to catch up with the goings-on over there.  My next guest arrives Friday.

Thanks for reading...and stay tuned!

*Ways to evoke depth:

• Overlapping;
• Size and relationships;
• Fading colour and texture (aerial perspective);
• Height on the picture plane;
• Roads or paths that go off in the distance;
• Foreground interest;
• Framing the view; and
• Using lines that lead the eye from the foreground back into the scene.