Here is a new art piece by my brother Michael Swart and I. It’s an equirectangular drawing, drawn with no photography, stitching, or computer modelling. Set in a place that’s meaningful to me: my home, outside, in the summer.

You can read more about the techniques in my earlier blogpost here. What’s special about this one is two things.

1. It’s especially detailed. To do the pencils, I bought a large (14″ x 17″) pad of paper.
2. It’s a collaboration with my brother Michael! I did the pencils, and we scanned it and he did the inking for that comic book look.

Below is a rundown of how this drawing progressed. Continue reading “Home in the Summer” →

A spherical panorama is one that captures, not just 360° around, but all the way up and down too. It captures every direction. I want to show you how you can hand draw (or sketch, paint, etc.) these panoramas.  

For instance, here’s my kitchen.

And if you can draw one that adheres to the equirectangular projection, you can upload it to sites like Flickr and Facebook which provide interactive panorama viewers like these ones:

Hand drawn panoramas are an uncommon art form but they aren’t new. Artists like Dick Termes, Matthew Lopas, Jackie Lima, Arno Hartman, and Tom Lechner have been drawing or painting complete or ultra-wide-angle panoramas for some time. Matthew Lopas’ facebook page features many such paintings, and Tom Lechner’s flickr group has more examples.

Fun right? It seems there are as many ways to accomplish hand drawn panoramas as there are artists doing this. I can show you how I did mine. Follow along.

Continue reading “Drawing a Spherical Panorama” →