Design Portfolio Tyler Phelps Fall 2020 | Seeing Architecture Through Watercolor | ARCH 711
Red Delicious The Red Delicious apple consists of deep shiny reds that often create a reflective persona. In this piece the use of primary colors create an overall tone to the drawing that merges the apple and the perceived background condition. The uses of blue and yellow on the apple create the depth and reflective nature of the fruit. The carefully planned white space helps the painting come off the page, and make you want to reach out and grab it.
Warm Afternoon The USDA tower is the tallest habitable structure in Manhattan. The amount of layering and depth in the image is achieved by using darker tones of crimson. The stark light coming from the right of the image creates a dynamic feel that creates false edges in the image. This piece is more about the shapes and composition of the image rather than the details and colors.
Cold Afternoon The USDA tower in Manhattan is a blinding white material that protrudes into the sky. In this piece the use of shadows is the main focus of the piece. The primary tone of blue differs based on the depth and texture of the image, and goes away to identify detail and openings of the building. A monochrome scheme was chosen due to the actual color of the location being all white.
Changing Seasons In the Midwest the changing of seasons between Fall and Winter create beautiful colors and tones in the landscape. This piece uses a mix of warm and cool colors to portray both of these seasons in the landscape and on the built form. The strong shadows hint at a setting sun to the left of the image that creates a warm tone on the painting.
Front Facade This drawing is all about the details and shadows of the Pantheon facade. The perfectly symmetrical building form offers little surprise beneath its front, but the shadows work on doing just that.
The Portico Not many people recognize the different angles of the Pantheon. This piece focuses more on how the famous portico meets the rest of the historic building form. The surrounding buildings and people suggest scale and sense of place within the context of Rome.
Pitched Tiles This sketch zooms in on a detail that most people do not recognize, the roof. The main focus of the building is the angle of the pitched tile roof. The stark contrast between dark and light creates a sense of differing planes and textures.
Details The details focused on in this sketch are what tourists and patrons come to see. The use of different materials, shapes, and techniques all take on different visual methods and shading. The careful attention paid to each brick and each stone translate into dynamic and layered textures.
No Sense of Placeness This is the first piece of work where I as an artist began to develop my color palette. The bronze and brown colors are used to signify the actual tones of the building. The Pantheon is placed on the sheet as an object with no sense of place to show its timelessness and ability to be viewed anywhere in space.
The City This painting of the upper portion of the Pantheon is primarily painted to focus on the depth and tone of the surrounding city. The Pantheon’s form occupies the foreground of the image, but the background is the focal point. The different tones of crimson and violet are used to show depth, haziness, and distance.
Piazza Shadows and context are the most important parts of historic buildings. The shadows of the surrounding buildings cast dark and light zones onto the ground. The piazza adjacent to the Pantheon is usually riddled with tourists and city goers that flock to the sunlight that shines between the buildings.
Entry to Knowledge This is my first attempt at on-site painting. This piece’s focus is on form, shapes, and deep colors that show depth and mystery. The use of violets and crimsons are used to create openings, overhangs, and material difference along the bottom of the image.
Power and Energy My second attempt at on-site painting is a monochrome image of the Kansas State Power Plant. The fluidity of the brush strokes and color create texture and show age on the facade of the building. The use of dark violet on the right of the image creates a foreground and background that frames the center building as the focal point. The purpose of this work is to convey the vertical movement of energy
Energy and Power This painting is the second attempt at portraying the Kansas State Power Plant. Unlike the prior attempt, this piece focuses more on the shadows and depth of the foreground to make the lighter background a break from the noise. The bronze and brown base of the image creates a soft and calming tone, with purples to spark detail and attention.
Abstraction Smooth colors and a cool color palette create a dynamic layered composition. The three dimensional forms and two dimensional planes create differing areas and zones. The use of false edges and white negative space finishes shapes and offers space for the mind to relax.
Project 04 This abstraction of a fourth year project focuses on the directionality of planes. The use of cool colors are meant to signify shadows and darkness, while the pale wash of warm colors represent the idea of light and void.
Sister Towers The two towers protrude from the otherwise simplified forms of the medieval city. The sun casts its warmth and bright colors onto the towers as if they were a clean canvas. The use of color and washed tones are used to convey details and casted shadows. The sketch was my first attempt at creating perspective, which successfully transitioned over into the completed watercolor.
The Pope Saint Peter’s Basilica is the headquarters of the Catholic Religion. The Cathedral’s massive scale and amount of detail shows the complete significance and importance of the building. The monochrome color scheme was chosen as a washed bronze to signify the age and history of the place. The added people and statues add life and scale to the painting to make the viewer feel more connected to the place.
Dock The primary focus of this piece was to create smooth tones of color to convey form and shadows. The solid color of the dock form works well with the darker tones of the crimsons and violets to show the difference between light and dark.
Living History Trying to convey a monolithic historic object in a fluid loose way was the main objective of this piece. The varying tones and levels of blues, reds, and violets were used to add depth, mystery, and a sense of power over the background. The added people and birds give the image a sense of life and movement to closely resemble the actuality of the place.
Scattered Blocks The reasoning behind this painting is to allow the eyes and mind to wander. The difference in warm and cool colors offset each other and create a layering and shifts in the background and foreground of the image. Through the use of false edges and mystery within the forms the mind has trouble identifying exactly what is it processing.
Palazzo Massimi 1 The first painting in the series, Palazzo Massimi 1 focuses on the textures and shadows of the small residential courtyard in small town Italy. The use of bronze and brown create a real life color palette that is only interrupted by violets and reds to add depth and shadow. The careful flow of the brush adds to the directionality and light conditions of the painting.
Palazzo Massimi 2 The second painting in the series, Palazzo Massimi 2 focuses on the depth and light conditions of the exterior courtyard. This painting chooses to implement a monochrome color scheme to create a unified work that shows both light and dark, smooth and rough, and solid and void.
Smoke I have always found the use of graphite is the best way to convey light and dark in an image. The techniques in graphite drawings have to be developed and practiced to be able to properly convey your thoughts. The use of false edges, stroke directionality, and light void spaces create a dynamic and detailed drawing.
Country The power of this sketch is the white space and highlights within the graphite. To create depth and layering within the fence, white voids and lighter shading is used. The loose landscape and background helps better emphasize the fence as the focal point of the drawing.
The Farm Much like the condition of the barns and fence depicted in this drawing, the technique is rough and rickety. The natural forms of the surrounding vegetation frames the focal point along with the solid voids of white and black.
Rubbish People find beauty in many different places and forms, but garbage is often not one. This drawing highlights exactly that, garbage, but focuses on the overall sweeping forms and dark bending voids.
Unwanted Still-life styled drawings focus on how objects are grouped and positioned to create a unified composition. The textures and shadows are what bring this drawing to life and create a realistic situation and condition.
Assisi, Italy This painting is one of the only situations where I have personal experiences to help me form my painting. I chose to focus on the different stark zones of light and shadow that are cast through the building forms. The bronze and brown is used to portray light washed area, where the red shows the heat and intensity of uninterrupted light. The overall painting is all about the negative and positive space between light and dark.
Hale Arcade Monochrome paintings are all about creating unified pieces that read together and form one focal point. The different tones of violet show the intensity of the shadows being casted by the arcade. Through the use of lifting color, I was able to create a sense of void and light within the vaulted ceiling and interior wall.
Piazza Navona Busy piazzas are what Italian cities are known for. The difference in light and dark from the street to the piazza creates mystery and depth in the piece. The warmer tones in the focus area outweigh the cooler tones that are used to show the hazy distant skyline. The added brush stroke techniques on the building facades and ground plane add a sense of directionality and texture.
Burgundy, France The focus of this painting is the clock tower that takes up the middle third of the composition. The dark portions along the bottom of the painting anchor the scene and allows the protruding tower to stand out as the focal point. Adding streaks of raw blues and reds add detail and abnormalities to the otherwise monochrome painting.
Dilapidated Barn This piece’s primary focus is to highlight the tarnish and age of the stand alone barn. The scattered brush strokes along with a wide variety of color makes this work take a life of its own. The simple strokes of raw reds and blues create highlights that draw the eye toward them.
Small Europe This painting focuses on the changing of the seasons in a small European town. The shrubbery and trees are riddled with greens, reds, and oranges, while the built forms live between them in harmony. The simple fine strokes of telephone lines help draw the eye through the work to the frame the sky and everything below.
Riquewihr, France This piece is set in a small town in France that boasts a very bright and loud color palette. Through the sketch and the watercolor my main focus was on creating stark highlights and dark shadows to add a dynamic viewpoint to the work. In my work I chose a cool vibrant color palette to represent the town’s hues, shadows, and overall aesthetic. The subtle hints on pure reds and blues are meant to add significance and depth to the work.