Download Perspective Drawing Exercise: Understanding Vanishing Points and Planes and more Papers Architecture in PDF only on Docsity! Reading Chapter 9, “Perspective”, especially pp. 139-145. Available online coa 1011 zamani The reading above should have given you a quick introduction to the basic concepts, terms, and techniques that govern drawing in perspective. The reading identifies two types of perspective drawings: linear and empirical. Both attempt to address the challenge of capturing, and representing on paper, objects in three-dimensional space. Chapter 3 introduced you to the concept of ‘foreshortening’: ‘re-shaping’ the proportions of an object (or space) in order to suggest spatial depth. The notions that objects ‘appear’ progressively smaller the farther away they are from us, or that parallel lines ‘appear’ to converge as they move away from us, provide the basic framework for perspectival drawings, whether linear (and constructed) or empirical (and sketched). During Exercise 1 we will NOT be constructing linear perspectives. Our task here is to borrow concepts and techniques that will help us produce quick sketches: sketches that create the illusion of depth on the flat surface of the drawing paper without having to be mechanically, and laboriously, constructed. Just a few quick lines, correctly conceived and deployed, can convey the shape of a space and the objects within it. Think of Ex 1.3a as a warm-up exercise that will help prepare you for sketching in perspective that will continue through Ex 1.3b and Ex 1.3c. This short exercise should help make you aware of the ‘distortions’ in appearance that seeing and sketching in perspective requires of us. (After all, seeing in perspective is not a natural, or the only, way of seeing. It is one of many, and it is culturally determined). This exercise will also introduce and activate terms introduced in the reading: vanishing points, horizon line, point of view, etc. This exercise should not take more than half an hour of class time. 1.3 a seeing . in perspective a warm-up… PART ONE Getting Started Sit comfortably with your pad of paper in front of you, your drawing hand (with pencil in it!) centered on the paper and your free hand holding a thin hard plastic CD box. Hold the CD box vertical, at eye-level, and at arm's length (maximum), by its left or right edge. Keep the face of the CD box parallel to your face. In this position the box will appear as the undistorted rectangle that it is. In your other hand, hold a pencil at arm's length, at eye level, across the center of the rectangle described by the CD box. Note that the pencil makes a horizontal line, dividing the CD box into two rectangles, with all corners 90-degree angles. Keeping the CD box vertical, slowly rotate the CD box away from your face, as if it were on a hinge. Hold the pencil in the same location (and position). Note that the pencil now appears to divide the CD box into two shapes that are no longer objectively viewed as rectangles: the left and right sides of the CD box are still parallel and vertical, but the top and bottom of the CD box appear to slant in relation to the horizontal. The top slants down towards the pencil, the bottom slants up. You can prove this to yourself by moving your perfectly horizontal pencil up and down, comparing its 'horizontal datum' to the top and bottom edges of the CD box. Go through these steps again: hold the CD box in a pivoted position, and try and sketch what you see - the horizontal line of the pencil, the far vertical edges of the CD box, and the upper and lower edges. Once you are familiar with the ‘distortions’ the CD box appears to go through, move on to the next step. Making Drawings Produce series of quick thumbnail sketches of the CD box as you pivot it through a number of positions. In the first series, pivot the CD box along the vertical axis. In the second set, experiment with pivoting the CD box along the top or the bottom edges. For both series, hold the 'center-line' of the CD box slightly above eye level, slightly below eye level, and completely above and below eye level. In all cases, keep the pencil horizontal to your eye level. Techniques/Tips Use your pencil to determine the upper and lower slant each time: hold the pencil horizontally at first, then pivot it to match the slant. Transfer this perceived slant to the paper. It is much easier if the pencil is held lightly with the thumb below, the other four above - like a seesaw - with the back of your hand facing you. See figures 3-7 and 3-8 on page 42 in the reading for Exercise 1.1 (Chapter 3, “Learning to See”, available on the library’s electronic reserves).
