• Special message--I hope you can join us tomorrow for our monthly live chat on YouTube. We're going to address simplifying shapes, but from a viewpoint you might not yet have considered. A composing tool that often totally stymies emerging artist is perspective--more specifically linear perspective. We've been taught that to do linear perspective correctly, we have to learn a
lot of rules. Do you have one of those perspective books, hoping it will be your solution? YOU DON'T NEED THE RULES! If linear perspective gives you fits, this tip might be just what you are looking for. Begin with this: linear
perspective is about seeing the tilt of angles and how long or short they are. Rather than trying to remember perspective rules, a brush handle, pencil, finger or even a stick can be turned into an angle finder. All it takes is holding your angle finder at arm’s length, closing one eye, and aligning it with the edges of
the object you are drawing. Here I am aligning my “angle finder” with the edges of the big tree to the left straight ahead. I read the angle, then draw it. One helpful way to "read" an angle is to refer to the numbers on an analog clock. The angle of the edge I'm reading here is 12 o'clock. In the righthand photo below, the angle aligned with the pencil is 10 o'clock, the one on the left reads 2:30. Once read, I draw those angles, automatically creating correct linear
perspective. There's no need to look for vanishing points or to try to decide whether my view of this book is one-point or two-point perspective. If I read the angle accurately, I will draw it in correct perspective. CLUE 1: One thing you have to be really careful about is that as you rotate your angle finder to discover the angle you are looking at, keep it rotating like the hands of a
clock, not allowing it to tilt either forward or backward. It helps to click it from position to position rather than use a continuous circular rotation. CLUE 2: Once you drawn the first line, when drawing the second one, switch your eyes back to the first one and compare how much shorter or longer the second line is to the first. Keep making this
length comparison for each line you make. THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT! Give it a try, first from this viewpoint, then do another with the book higher up, and a third with the book lower down. Enjoy a successful weekend of creating perspective without the rules!
|
Happy Painting,
Dianne
dianne@diannemize.com
|
During my Language of Painting series, I explained the role of our visual elements. If you'd like to review those roles to better understand the behavior of elements, here are the links to each of those
discussions: Color --Value -- Shape -- Texture -- Size -- Line and Direction
You can access the archive of all my newsletters (as well as the Quick Tips and other stuff) at any time by going HERE.
|
