# I drew a picture to offer it as a gift **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 1, 2015, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319 "2015-06-01T06:54:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/21 "2016-07-18T11:48:43Z")
> [@Helena330](#): > > It’s beautiful! > [@Me\_Billy](#): > > Each Christmas I am constantly telling people they DON’T need to go out and buy expensive gifts for everyone. (The people I am telling this to can barely pay their rent.) > > I say just make a simple handmade Christmas card and write a little something about what that person means to you. That card will be the best gift they could possibly receive! > > So excellent gift! > [@raventhief](#): > > These are quite lovely! Thank you very much for your positive reaction. > [@Trinopus](#): > > I’m very impressed by the shading. Also the exact linear regularity of the windows, which almost look like they were drawn with a computer-assisted-drawing tool. Good work on the human figure, too. It all comes together with a nice cohesion and unity. Given the rather minimalist composition, the impact of this picture depends on the shading to a great extent. This is not an actual street that I might have come across in Greece during my holidays two weeks ago. I spent my vacation in France, Germany and Austria, but for some reason I felt like drawing something Greek. It took me an hour to decide on the parts and how to integrate them within the whole. The street, for example, is quite straight, simple in terms of texture and regular in terms of shape, which is rarely the case with the real Greek stepped lanes I know. I debated whether to incorporate old, traditional buildings or contemporary ones. The same minimalist drive made me opt for something modern. Due to their moderate height, they do appear out of place, though. As for the light, I had to make my mind up as to where it comes from way before I started to outline every component. The entire picture took about eight hours to produce. As for the lines, they may look machine-made but I had to struggle with them a lot because drawing the buildings and their elements by means of a vanishing point simply didn’t work out. I mean I tried it at first but everything looked unexpectedly ridiculous, like a stupid caricature, and I just couldn’t figure out why. To make the picture look realistic, I had to work with several vanishing points simultaneously and a well-trained artist could easily notice the elements where I hesitated. It wasn’t until I was done that I understood why I couldn’t keep a simple rule. On the one hand, the road is a little curvy and, on the other hand, the slope of the road is not constant – the lane is steeper in the foreground than it is in the background. I showed it to my wife as soon as I finished it and she told me it reminded her of former Yugoslavia, not of Greece. I asked her what the theme was, in her opinion. Siesta in the Balkans, she replied. Okay, I said. I hadn’t thought of a theme. In fact, the man in the bottom center was not part of the original plan. But after I carefully drew everything in the picture, I realized it looked barren and lacked something badly. Adding the man was a risky move. I had made similar decisions in the past and the outcome was often a negative one. I especially remember a German square, on which I had worked for many hours and to which I added a man and a motorcycle. I took me forever to find the correct proportions and when I finally got them right, everything seemed too crowded. I felt rotten when I offered that picture as a gift. But adding this guy to my Greek street was an unexpected success. I drew him in no time and suddenly the picture expressed something instead of nothing. Drawing is a lot of fun. Right now I’m thinking of my new little project. I’m happy I’m not involved in any social media and I gave up playing games on electronic devices a long time ago. With a bit of luck and constant exercise I may turn drawing into a lucrative activity when I retire on a pension. Thank you for your nice words. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/22 "2016-12-31T10:53:21Z")
I have continued drawing. I’ve also bought and read books on drawing. They were fun and informative, but I’ve noticed that I have a lot of limitations, part of which come from the fact that I’ve already developed a personal style out of which I’m difficult to move. I will have to find my way to improve, if any improvement is still possible. I’m spending the New Year’s Eve in the mountains (something traditional where I come from) and I’ve decided to draw a skyscraper view to offer the host as a gift. Here is the little piece: [http://i67.tinypic.com/zxo38z.jpg](http://i67.tinypic.com/zxo38z.jpg). He has already received it and said he liked it a lot. I can’t tell whether it was mere politeness or not. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/23 "2017-01-01T03:38:26Z")
> [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > a good feel for rhythm, structure and overall composition. I clicked expecting something sad and amature, and was blown away by the composition. That’s good. > [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > To offer a better view of the winter scene above, I uploaded the picture on Tinypic again. I’m sorry I don’t have better photos. In fact, my wife took their picture to show them to her friends at work. Not the only member of the family with exceptional skills. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/24 "2017-01-01T06:32:01Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > I clicked expecting something sad and amature, and was blown away by the composition. That’s good. I’ve been debating whether I should bring this thread up again, but then I realized it would be rude not to thank you for taking your time to write something so nice. I will add some more information then. My daughter moved from class 4C to class 4B because of her former teacher was bad. I won’t go into details but parents know how delicate and difficult these issues are. She quite happy with the new environment and especially with the new teacher. Of course I decided to draw a picture for the new teacher, which was the medieval square of a European city, where two girls are blowing soap bubbles. It took me several days to draw it. I used black ink for the girls in the forefront and pencil of different shades for the buildings in the background. The last thing left was the white soap bubbles. In real life, soap bubbles are not actually white, but are partly transparent and partly reflect light. I decided to use ink to make them look realistic and I ruined them. Thus, the entire drawing was ruined and tore the picture into bits. My wife almost cried when I threw it into the trash can. I drew something else for the teacher (who’s also good at art), not as challenging as my original choice but I didn’t have time to experiment anymore. > [@Melbourne](#): > > Not the only member of the family with exceptional skills. My wife is a wonderful person. Every December she spends hours to create new Christmas decorations and our house is heavily decorated all over. She bakes wonderfully and her colleagues at work love it because my daughter and I cannot eat too much and thus they get to enjoy my wife’s creations regularly. Christmas and New Year’s Eve are two (out of the three) main occasions when women who enjoy cooking do their best to satisfy their guests in my country. The New Year’s Eve is the greatest party one can regularly attend, where everybody eats best traditional foods and dances all night long. I’ve just gone through this party and I’m extremely tired but I can’t sleep during daytime and so I came here to see the impact of my most recent drawing. Thank you again. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/25 "2017-01-01T16:22:40Z")
It was nice to see the new drawing. I remembered the earlier triptychs but hadn’t read all the commentary. Not to mock Mr. Trinopus, but his comment about the perspective looking computer-generated was both amusing and thought provoking. That particular drawing was filled with interesting choices (some of which you discussed); I particularly liked the way the bottoms of the large windows did not aim toward the same vanishing point as the rest of the windows’ horizontal edges. ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/26 "2017-01-02T08:01:38Z")
Your sense of composition is really wonderful, as is your use of light and shadow. I hope you continue to post your art in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/27 "2017-01-03T20:46:54Z")
I decided that the best way to thank people for their kind words was to draw something. This should be another picture that I’m going to offer as a gift - only I don’t know who I’m going to give it to yet. [![](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) ](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/28 "2017-01-04T03:05:38Z")
That’s truly nifty! Very nice composition, very nice execution! I like the way the logs (?) serve to unify the three pictures, making them into a single picture. There’s a lot of personality in the two people. In the photo, these look to be silhouettes, but I can’t tell for sure? Are they, or is there detail I just can’t see? I love a good silhouette! (There’s an old Walt Kelly “Pogo” comic strip which is drawn that way, and one character says to another, “These silhouettes sure saves a mess of drawin’.”) ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319/29 "2017-01-04T07:25:26Z")
For the previous drawing (skyscraper view), I had to keep the ruler at hand a lot. As soon as I finished it I felt like drawing something ruler-free. However, I still had to use the ruler for the next one (beachfront) so that the drawing would look neat. I think the success of a project often depends on neatness. I don’t know how I came up with the idea of the beachfront. When I started thinking of the composition, I already knew it was going to be some beachfront image with the sun in the distance. This meant that whoever stood in the foreground was going to end up as a silhouette. Realistically speaking, the details of the guy in the middle wouldn’t be distinguishable when watching him with the naked eye against the sun. On the other hand, some details of the woman on the left and the surfer should be visible but I opted for the same solution. There are several why I chose the silhouettes, such as consistency, simplicity, general vs. particular, etc. I used black ink for the bottom of the composition, which I think consists of some rock-like slabs, and the two people in the foreground. Everything else is in pencil of different shades. The photo of this picture was taken at night and some particular details of the shading were lost in the process, but I don’t think it matters very much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-drew-a-picture-to-offer-it-as-a-gift/721319.md?page=1)