The Zhengyi Wang piece uses every trick to create a sense of scale and emphasize the size of the spaceship. The primary forms are pretty simple - repeated circles, with a few spokes attached to a core cylinder that fades into the distance. •Diminution - 4/5 Each mechanical part in each "circle" is repeated on the circle further back. This makes it clear that the difference in scale is due to distance. This also is done in the blocky buildings on the circle. Each building gets smaller as it moves back in space. I thought it was interesting how this effect with any given few buildings was small, but because there are so many buildings, the effect is intensified. •Convergence - 5/5 I thought this was one of the most intense of the tricks in this piece. Many of the mechanical parts feature parallel lines that move away from the picture plane, creating a lot of converging lines. This effect is intensified by each successive circle and its own converging lines. Almost all of them are wrapped around the center cylinder or outer ring, meaning they all converge toward the same point - the center of the circle. •Foreshortening - 3/5 Since the big, primary forms are simple it becomes obvious to the eye how the shapes are transformed by perspective. The circles along the cylinder of the central spoke become ovular. The outer rings similarly become ovular, and the outer rings have scaffolding that twist as they circle toward us. •Overlap - 4/5 The way that each ring is rotated independently creates a lot of crossing spokes, which allows for a lot of overlap. The spokes in the closest ring dominate the composition, overlapping over every further-back ring. Each building on the outer rings overlaps the one behind it, sort of like roofing tiles. •Atmosphere - 5/5 This is the other most intense tricks used in this piece. The fog becomes so dense that the other end of the spaceship is invisible to us. The rings seem to repeat into infinity. Simple but very effective at establishing a sense of scale and depth. The Amir Zand piece is interesting to me, because it also emphasizes size and scale, but goes about it in a completely different way. Its design actually seems to deliberately avoid or subvert each of the tricks. It accomplishes making the giant rock seem both realistic and strange, grounded but larger than possible. I wasn't sure how to actually rate the tricks here, so I decided to rate how much each trick was PRESENTED in the piece, and explain below how it actually was USED to enhance the design. •Diminution - 2/5 There are almost no repeated objects that would make diminution clear. The giant rock is one of the furthest away objects, but is also the largest object in the composition. This contradiction causes the rock to loom uncannily large. The objects closest to us - the man on the boat - is one of the smallest objects. This emphasizes how dwarfed he is. The algae on the water is shaped in a way that diminishes a bit at first, at least until the middle of the composition, but then the size becomes seemingly random again, creating a contrast and an intentional rejection of the diminution rule. There are a few smaller rocks that diminish in size, and I've marked them with a brighter color. I marked some things with a grayer color that seem to reject the opportunity to use diminution. The flock of birds are painted parallel to the picture plane, which means they do not diminish at all. The left side of the rock has several faces that create shadows. As these faces get further away, they actually get larger in size, which contradicts what we would expect. This contradiction again creates a sense of the rock actually getting larger. •Convergence - 2/5 There are just a few lines that converge into the distance, and I've marked them with brighter lines, but they aren't very convincing. I've marked with grayer lines all of the places that seem to reject convergence as a tactic. The bottom line of the rock, where it meets the water, is flat. It's parallel to the picture plane, despite it having a side plane further up. That side plane meets the lower-down section at an angle opposite to what we would expect on a typical cube. •Overlap - 2/5 Each facet along the left side of the giant rock overlaps the one behind it. This is simple but, along with the lighting, is enough to explain that this plane is actually receding, despite its lack and rejection of the other tricks. The way the algae overlaps the rock's reflection is interesting to me. It doesn't technically overlap the rock, but it sort of pushes it back...spiritually maybe? An interesting way to have the rock acted on spatially without having it covered at all. The rock overlapping the birds is one of the only ways we have to understand our distance from the birds. •Atmosphere - 3/5 The atmosphere used here is less of a mist or fog, and more of a shift in color. The algae becomes less saturated further back, and the clouds are much grayer than the rest of the piece. The effect isn't as intense as the other piece I discussed, for example, but it's certainly there. It's interesting that the shift in saturation seems to happen right at the bottom of the big rock, along both the y and z axes of the painting. This further emphasizes the rock and its "magical" qualities. •Foreshortening - 4/5 This seems to be the most intensely displayed trick in this piece. The way the algae is shaped to present the plane of the water shows a mastery of foreshortening. The way the bottom of the painting spreads out like that reminds me of a wide-angle lens photo, which is very interesting to me - normally, wide-angle lens pictures "shrink" their subjects, especially the things that are far away. If the rock really looked that big in a wide-angle lens, it must be especially large. Someone please let me know if I'm off here, but painting a composition in a way that references photographic lenses to play with scale is genius.

Week 1

The images I've gathered: 1 is by Amir Zand, 2 and 3 by Daniel Dociu, 4 by Hyojin Ahn, 5 by Patrick Faulwetter, 6 by Ying Yi, 7 and 8 by Yoshida Hiroshi, 9 and 10 by Zhengyi Wang A lot of the art that I am amazed by creates immersive, dramatic, believable fantasy and sci-fi environments. My goal is to be able to create that kind of space and scale in my art. The specific problems I aim to solve are how to make things look HUGE, far away or very close up, to create an immersive sense of space, and use extreme perspectives for drama and storytelling. I also travel a lot and would like to be able to sketch the places that I visit, so I need to get an intuitive sense of perspective so I can work quickly on site, along with the ability change how to modify the scene for compositional reasons, but keep it feeling true to life.