Computer Graphics World

September/October 2014

Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/398245

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 33 of 51

32 cgw s e p t e m b e r . o c t o b e r 2 0 1 4 M O D E L I N G . 3 D P R I N T I N G The viola da gamba came from China. Jenison located a similar blue chair in a museum in Del and modeled it in 3D based on photos he took, and then made them on his CNC milling machine and lathe, which he modified to cut wood instead of metal. Jenison obtained accurate dimensions from the LightWave scene models to use in the machine shop for milling the objects. He could determine the size of the room and other objects based on the size of the known items, such as the harp- sichord. He then transferred the LightWave files to BobCAD, a CAM program, where he tweaked the files so they could be read by the milling machine. With the room now ready, Jenison had to build the projec- tion device, for which he craed 17th century lenses (that were less perfect than they are today). Then, it was time to put his theory to the test. T E S T I N G P H A S E Jenison quickly points out that he is not a painter, never was, but has learned how to operate a paintbrush. "I wouldn't have been able to paint without the machine, even if my life depended on it," he says with a laugh. Nevertheless, the device did not make the process any less complicated. "I naively thought the ma- chine would pretty much make the process automatic, and I would just sit down and paint," Jenison says. "It was more com- plicated than that. There was a lot of problem-solving just to figure out how Vermeer did it." Jenison started out with a camera obscura. As he explains, many assumed that some artists, like Vermeer, went into a dark room and could see a pic- ture projected on the back wall from a lens installed on another wall, but everything outside the box was projected upside down and backward. Again, the pro- jected image could be traced but not painted because it was so dark inside. In frustration, Jenison started playing around and held up an- other mirror on the back wall – and saw this bright version of the room. That breakthrough came halfway through the film. "I never saw that one coming," he adds. "I had tried to paint in the dark room, but it wasn't working. That was sort of the low point of this project – I had built the room and had this great idea of how Vermeer painted, but when I got in there, I could not see the harpsichord, those little decorations on it. You could tell they were there, but they were really fuzzy." In addition to the mirror on the back wall, another small mirror Jenison calls a "compar- ator mirror" was the key to the painting process. Jenison explains how it works. "You are now in full daylight leaning over the canvas, which is flat on a table. Right in front of you is this little mirror on a stick, and in the mirror you can see the room out there, and you just have to match the colors and shapes in the mirror. At the edge of the mirror is where you do your color matching, since that is where you can see both [the projection and your painting] together and can compare the painting colors to the colors you are trying to replicate. You are not going pixel by pixel, but rather painting broad shapes and refining them so they look the same, more like a real artist would do. If you have it perfect, you cannot really see the edge of the mirror; it becomes invisible. But if one of them [the original or yours] suddenly be- comes too light or too dark, you can see the edge of the mirror." There is no subjectivity; it either matches or it doesn't and the artist has to do more work. For months, Jenison trekked to his Vermeer room and paint- ed, tackling a different object each day, though some, like the rug draped over a table in the foreground, took weeks (about 35 percent of the painting time) because of its intricate pattern. Moreover, only a small part of the room was visible in the little mirror, requiring it to be reposi- tioned constantly – a skill in and of itself, since a half inch in one direction makes the difference whether something can be seen or not. Even the paint Jenison used was made to the same speci- fications as Vermeer's, thanks to chemical analysis. Jenison's background in television and graphics made the color mixing during the painting process more intuitive than it would have been for the average person. "You can spend a lot of time getting the colors perfect. But, you have to decide when it is good enough and then move on. I regret moving on in certain parts [of the painting] because I le them in sort of shabby shape. But I had already turned this into a huge project and was sick of painting," he says. "It was drudgery halfway through, especially when I got to the rug. But as the rug started to ma- terialize on the canvas, I could tell it was pretty spectacular. Up to that point, no one knew if this was going to work." T H E A N A LY S I S Jenison followed his rule that he would paint exactly what he saw in the machine as accu- rately as possible. So, does Jenison's work, aided by the device, look like Vermeer's? "It does look like the Vermeer – from a distance," he says, ac- knowledging that he lacked the artistic skill that Vermeer had. (Perhaps it can be compared to a 3D artist using the computer to create art – the machine aids the process, but the end result is a reflection of a person's artistic ability.) Yet, Jenison believes his painting is more detailed and photographic than the master's. "Vermeer would not have been as obsessive as I was. He would have painted more economically," he points out. For instance, whereas Jenison painted every stitch on the rug, Vermeer painted a few, leaving the impression of cloth. "In that way he was an artist and I was not." The painting process spanned several months, and during that time, Jenison had the chance to see The Music Lesson original, which is owned by the Queen of England and is not usually on public display. "I was blown away. I had been looking at prints, and there is far more detail in the painting than "There WAS A LOT OF PROBLEM-SOLVING JUST TO FIGURE OUT HOW VERMEER DID IT."

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Computer Graphics World - September/October 2014