In terms of perspective, and yes I'm talking about the technical kind, I was fortunate. In college, Architecture was one minor course of study I had when pursuing a degree in construction mgmt. Drafting class after drafting class taught me a lot about linear perspective and why certain angles complement each other in terms of the human cone of vision. This was a great complement to drawing skills I had practiced all my young life and really helped me become a better artist. Now years later I have learned other important lessons regarding the use of linear, artistic as well as atmospheric perspective systems. Some of these points I thought important to share. First one is probably the most important which is yes you must actually struggle through and learn academic perspective inside and out so you understand spatial relationships and how they work with perspective systems. This gives you your base in terms of that ever important artistic problem solving repertoire that you will indeed use your whole life as an artist. While this is important to learn it brings me to my next point regarding perspective usage. One of the most important reasons to learn about perspective systems is not what you'd expect. You have to learn how to use perspective so you can then learn how to break the rules because at times your perspective will be technically correct but guess what? Your drawing looks stiff, or wrong and you have to nudge something out of the technically correct perspective arrangement in order to get back on track. This is a much more subjective thing and will only come with time and lots of practice. I mean read all the books you want, look at tutorials, etc. They are fine but nothing will teach you like sitting at your drawing board or computer and simply drawing, and that includes drawing terrible stuff. You have to mess up to progress so don't be afraid to erase something or toss out something you've messed up. Embrace the failures and study how you went wrong so you can learn from it, then they cease to become failures but rather become tools. Next is you have to learn another subjective lesson. In various types of work some forms of perspective take precedence over others. When drawing vehicles you will most likely be adhering to a linear perspective true, but what about drawing panoramas or sweeping vistas? Well they really call for knowing how to use atmospheric perspective effectively. Sometimes a combination is in order. You must decide how and when to use each type. Finally there is a mistake I see in work all over the place and I feel it is a result of how perspective is taught rather than misunderstanding on the students' part. DO NOT make every item in your drawing follow the same vanishing points!!! This is ultra important. Every single item in a picture, unless it is completely parallel and in line with another has its own vanishing point(s). Sometimes, ie cityscapes, you can cheat this a bit so you don't go nuts but in most pictures you have to take the time to draw most features with their own perspective. Another overlooked point in perspective is that curved lines work in nearly the same fashion as straight lines and using them adds live to your drawings rather than using straight, stiff grids all the time. One last thing, simply think of your visual field as a cone that deforms all you see. As items retreat from you into the smaller part of the cone they get smaller and closer together no matter which direction you are looking or what point perspective you are viewing them in. I know this is all pretty basic stuff but I feel they are points that are very important in getting your work to look great while adhering to the correct perspective. Get really comfortable with perspective drawing so you can play around with it and really start to make things happen with it in your own way. I hope my perspective on perspective is helpful. Best Wishes.
IIId
***Perspective For Artists by Rex Vicat Cole is a very in depth book that a lot of great artists refer to. I certainly own it. It's a bit tough to read but it covers a great deal concerning the technical aspects of artistic perspective systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment