Perspective Drawing

[wizard509]

This time I agree with much of what you are saying, although I think Albacore is saying the same thing.
Have you ever heard of the fan method for locating the precise location and size of the different elements on the face of an element or elements in the perspective drawing? That is particularly useful when drawing buildings or interiors from plans. Gives the same result as using diagonals for spacing but has an added advantage of not only locating the position but also the size should you wish to take it that far.

[handrawn]

talking of art [and playing devil's advocate in part] - there are times when true perspective is not what you want - a classic example is foreshortening of limbs, true perspective here can 'look wrong' even though it is technically correct and that's due to the fact that you are looking at a piece of paper with marks on it [or the media equivalent] and not the real thing...

[perspective]

1. The basic construction of the perspective grid.
2. Basic construction showing the Measuring Points and the plotting of the first cube.
3. Basic construction with the second cube.
4. The finish Cubes.
5. The finish Cubes showing the Cone of Vision.

I have created the Perspective Drawings using the measurements I gave in my previous post. I have also created the images to show some of the questions discussed. First you will have noticed the second cube is out of the Cone of Vision. I have done that to deliberately show what can happen if bad positions is used and therefore showing just what can happen if you are out of the Cone of Vision, foreshortening becomes wrong. By standing back further I would have created the 2nd cube within the cone of vision but if you are drawing Limbs etc using 'true perspective' can never be wrong!

Once you know perspective you can alter the state of what you see to create what you want your audience to see and the Fine artists are a master of doing just that. I needed no Plans, just the sizes I gave and therefore saved a lot of additional time. The Vanishing points are always 90deg to the viewer so once you are happy with the angle you are going to use, eg 34deg on one side that is all you need, so therefore you have an infinite amount of angle to create your perspective drawing.

The measuring point is base on your vanishing points so you cannot go wrong. Keeping it simple is also what perspective is all about. From my construction above I can pinpoint any object, create my light source exactly where I want, my shadows, reflection and whatever I wish.

[handrawn]

we will disagree then on the foreshortening - it is like I said not always the case

if it helps you could think of me as a 'true' artist who is concerned with creating an image that creates an powerful effect, not one that is hidebound by trying to mimic reality too closely which artistically is rather dogmatic

I appreciate that draughtsmen, engineers, architects, and designers etc cannot play fast and loose with perspective - artists on the other hand can.

[perspective]

Handrawn, I totally agree with you! But it is always helpful to have the knowledge of perspective to know just what you are playing with. All artist including Technical Illustrators and Fine Artists also sometimes have to cheat with perspective to show the audience just what they want the viewer to see and understand.

[handrawn]

sometimes, getting the viewer to understand is the really difficult bit

[perspective]

As I have said before I am new to forums but I am starting to understand and you guys have helped. I recently saw another very old tread and most OPs (is that right?) were writing the correct answers, in fact from #5. By causing an attitude I made someone create the artwork for all to see and showed me clearly that we have some serious artists on this forum. My handle is perspective and it follows the same way that many programs use perspective such as Adobe Illustrator's perspective tool to name but one. But even with Illustrator's perspective tool, a great amount of distortion is shown and can be easily corrected with the knowledge of perspective drawing.

[wizard509]

I'll have to study your examples because you are using a method that I do not understand although I remember being exposed to that method on school. I might post an example of how I use the cone of vision and was taught to set up the perspective and measuring line. I would be most interested to see how you set up a 3 point perspective. I do not believe that "Fine Artists" are a master of perspective. From what I have seen their understanding of perspective is limited to; things get smaller as they get farther away and the lines converge to some point on the horizon. Granted some are "masters" but that may not be the norm. They get the perspective right by careful observation and holding a brush up thereby comparing sizes, distances, and verticals or like handrawn said arrange the objects to create the maximum visual impact. As an architectural delineator I had to have a method of showing what the architect designed to best advantage. There was no cheating or altering, that was not allowed in any studio I worked in although I have seen a studio that did. Most studios do not even allow tha artist to sign the painting other that with their company logo, the company I work at here did, but, that was an exception

I ran across this from a company newsletter that one of the jokesters cut out and had some fun with.

[perspective]

Wizard509, most of your content above I understand just what you are saying and I agree. The reason I mention 'Fine Artist', which I myself use to do a lot, is because of the intensity of the work and careful observation of the subject can give you a fairly accurate drawing. Often we look at artwork with mistake in perspective but the brain, which plays a very important part of what we 'see', lends a hand to convince the viewer of what is real, this was the point I was making regarding cheating. Technical and architectural illustrations have to be more accurate of course, but if you are showing an exploded view of a 'peg' going into a 'hole' the viewer needs to know the peg 'can' go inside that hole and we might cheat a little by making the hole a little bigger or the peg a little smaller than it really is.

The form of perspective that I use is simple yet accurate. Once you have learned it you can draw almost anything without plans, just sizes. You do not need to create the technical stuff for landscape or fine art, it's easer to retain in your brain because it just makes sense. and of all the perspective method used it is just the same as you standing in front of a window and drawing what you see outside. It covers absolutely all visual form.

While standing on a beach in Jamaica a cruse ship passed by in the distance and someone asked 'how far do you think that ship is away from us?'. I looked at the horizon and could tell him just how far it was away from us, in my option. You need to understand the curve of the earth and the height of the person and you can give a pretty good answer. If I stood on a roof top I just need to know how high the roof is and recalculate. When doing landscape for instance, these are very important points to note and can make your drawing more accurate.

[wizard509]

I agree with and like your analogy of the peg and hole. I liken projection perspective as slide projector projecting what you want to draw (a snapshot from where you are standing) on to a "movie screen" (picture plane) and tracing.
Some of the famous landscape painters used a camera obscura (that being little more than a pinhole in the side of a tent acting as a camera lens projecting the image onto their drawing surface, which they then traced) to do that very thing.
"While standing on a beach in Jamaica a cruse ship passed by in the distance and someone asked 'how far do you think that ship is away from us?'. I looked at the horizon and could tell him just how far it was away from us, in my option. You need to understand the curve of the earth and the height of the person and you can give a pretty good answer. If I stood on a roof top I just need to know how high the roof is and recalculate." That sounds like you have the gift of mental triangulation, triangulation being a trigonometric concept.
I don't know about you but I am enjoying this threadl